PREVENTING LAPTOP USERS FROM ILLEGAL WI-FI USE

Preventing others from illegally accessing your wireless home or business network is very important. Too many times one has seen news reports that someone sat in front of a home or business in their car and used your internet connection for free. Prevention is the key! For starters, we have all heard the term firewall, well with a wireless network, the firewall is so much more important. Allowing even your neighbor to use your Wi-Fi connection gives them access to any number of resource on your computer that may be considered as “shared” even without your knowledge. It is basically a back door that is left unlocked in your home.

Everyday when you go to work, do you just leave all of your home’s windows open and your doors unlocked? Chances are you don’t but not protecting your wireless connection is just the same, the only real difference is that a burglar steals the valuables in your home whereas a wireless hacker can steal your entire identity.

Even your home or business’s router can cause you issues. Depending on the router, a person using your internet access illegal can monitor your web access and get your email and passwords to your bank and more. You need to make sure that your home or business’s router has WEP capabilities. WEP is an encryption that will prevent others from accessing your internet connection, but once again, this needs to also be used along with your computer’s firewall.

On top of all this, make sure that even on your personal wireless access that you log off of your bank’s website or any other financial institute’s website when not in use. Make sure that the site uses an HTTPS protocol. When this is used, a key is passed to your computer only, anyone who is trying to see your stuff will just see a bit of useless bytes of data.

For the longest time, broadband routers with WEP encryption have been utilized as a hardware solution to firewalls; they have also been used in conjunction with software firewalls. As long as you do not give out your routers encryption key, you should be fine, but giving it out to even a neighbor may lead to issues that you may not want to happen.

Always be safe and prepared, as well as paranoid when you set-up a home wireless network, you never know who may be watching you.