A recent newspaper report Gatton Star on October 3^rd leads me to write about Wireless Network Security.

For quite some time now, I have been advising customers of the risk of installing a domestic-grade Wi-Fi Access Point. These units make it easy for anyone with a laptop in your home or office to connect to the Internet.

While the designers of these devices have included the ability to make the wireless signal secure this feature is normally disabled and must be enabled by a technician for security of the wireless signal to work properly.

Correctly enabling the Wireless Security feature is often overlooked or beyond the ability of non-technical users. This insecure wireless signal spreads out from the source and is easily hacked into by any knowledgeable user with a laptop computer.

These days many ADSL Modems are sold with the local Wi-Fi wireless facility built in and turned on. Many users are unaware that this signal will radiate and give anyone within range free access to this signal and therefore they will have access to the Internet and to the local network of PCs and other devices connected to that access point. If the owner of the ADSL Connection pays for the Internet by data volume used, the extra data used by the Guests could lead to a very large bill for excess usage.

This is exactly what happened to some businesses in the main street of Gatton. They were hacked into by people using Laptops in their cars in the street near their businesses, leading to unexpected accounts for excess data usage.

There are now three main types of data encryption to enable the wireless signal to be secure. The first and oldest of these methods is called WEP or Wired Equivalency Protocol – unfortunately this uses an encryption key that is transmitted with the data. These days’ hackers can capture a stream of data from a wireless access point that uses WEP decrypt the Key and then break into the Data Stream.

The newer security protocols are much harder to break and so now the computer industry recommends that users should be using WPA or WPA2 i.e. Wi-Fi Protected access of Wi-Fi Protected Access version2. With these new methods, all that is needed is to program into both the Access Point and the Laptop a starting key usually in the form of a “Pass Phrase”. This then rolls on automatically without the actual key being transmitted. Pass Phrases take the form of a sentence like “mydogbringsinthenewspaperforme” No one is going to guess that in a hurry.

Users who need help in setting up wireless or other networking systems can call a computer service such as Aspire Computing see advert this page. Wishing you Happy and Safe Computing.

According to Chaim (Hyam) Lee of Aspire Computing in Toowoomba the SonicWALL range of Network Appliances can filter internet content according to pre-selected categories. This can be used to protect businesses from their staff using the internet for inappropriate purposes while at work. The SonicWALL Content Filter can also restrict children at school or at home from accessing Porn and other nasties.

News Ltd. recently reported that Tom Wood a 16-year-old, Year 10, Melbourne schoolboy had cracked the federal government’s new “NetAlert” internet porn filter released in August.

Tom said it took him about 30 minutes to break through the filter. Tom deactivated the filter after several clicks and his method ensures the software’s toolbar icon is not deleted so parents will think that the filter is still working. Tom said a computer-savvy child could post the bypass on the internet for other kids to use.

Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan said the government had anticipated children would find ways to get around the filters so Suppliers were contracted to provide updates. She said “Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and … traditional parenting skills have never been more important.”

Man steals personal info using Limewire file sharing program

from the Sydney Morning Herald

In the USA, the Justice Department recently arrested a man in its first case against someone committing identity theft by using a file-sharing program to steal digital data.

Federal prosecutors said the suspect used ’Limewire’ a file-sharing program to troll other people’s computers across the internet for financial information. He then used the info to open credit card accounts for an online shopping spree.

Authorities said they have identified least 83 victims – most of whom were teenage children who did not know the file-sharing software was on their computer. Investigators also believed the number of people affected was in the hundreds – and that in all, they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Each day, computer users inadvertently share hundreds of thousands of sensitive files from bank statements, medical records, tax returns and legal documents stored on their computers’ Hard Disk Drives through such file-sharing programs. Typically the vulnerabilities occur after a user downloads and installs file-sharing software and accidentally allows it to share all files on a computer, rather than just the music files.

“If you are running file-sharing software, you are giving criminals the keys to your computer”. “Criminals are getting access to incredibly valuable information” said assistant US attorney Kathryn Warma.

“We continue to be frustrated that despite our warnings and precautions, a small fraction of users override the safe default setting that comes with the program and end up inadvertently publishing information that they would prefer to keep private,” said the Head of Limewire.

Chaim Lee from Aspire Computing advises that computer users need to get assistance from Qualified and experienced technicians to check out their security flaws and provide appropriate protection.

The World Wide Web – Internet has become main source of infection – drive-bys

I have been reading the recent Security Threat Report: 2008 by Sophos a leading IT Security company. (http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/marketing_material/sophos-security-report-08.pdf )

Unlike ten years ago, when virus writers were writing code for mischief; today’s attacks are organized, commercial ventures designed to steal information and resources from computers to make money. Cybercriminals are planting malicious code on innocent websites waiting to infect visiting web surfers.

Sophos says it discovers a new infected webpage every 14 seconds. That is 6000 new infected web pages per day. The majority of these sites (83%) are legitimate websites that have been compromised by an unauthorized third-party. Surfers are often lured to these compromised web pages via emails using social engineering tactics to attract unsuspecting users to visit. Also, hackers place their malicious code on sites which are known to have a high number of visitors. Once the site is infected, unwary visitors without proper firewall, security or patches, on their PCs can themselves be infected. The content of these sites varies dramatically. Because of the range of subjects that hacked sites cover, blocking sites by content is not sufficient to protect users against these threats.

This year, I have disinfected quite a few customers’ PCs each week that have been infected by drive-bys. In my own network, protection starts with a SonicWALL Unified Threat Management device located at the head of my network directly after the ADSL Modem. Then Adware/Spyware immunization & protection products are installed on each PC. If you need help with your problems please call me at Aspire Computing.