WARNING- do you have a wireless modem or router in your house?? I just found out that a neighbour has been piggybacking off my wifi for months!!!!!! A few issues- 1) It uses up your download limits. 2) It uses your speed, so it will slow you down, these are the two obvious things that people are concerned about. However, there is much worse that can and does happen 3) you dont know who is out there, or what they are downloading 4) If they are accessing innapropriate material, the boys in blue will be knocking at YOUR door, not the offender. 5) They can get into your computer, emails, put software on that can steal passwords, etc. After they have your passwords, consider what your bank accounts will look like after they empty them. 6) Use your computer to distribute anything- spam, illegal downloads, etc. There are a few ways of keeping yourself safe. 1) Just dont use a wireless modem. This is the most obvious and safe method. However, most of us, myself included, are hideously addicted to wifi devices and will reject this out of hand 2) Check what type of wireless security your device has. If it has something called WEP, and only WEP, just throw your router in the bin. No discussions or arguments, please! It is outdated, old, and can be easily hacked into by someone smart enough to google how to do it. (Takes about half an hour to learn how to do it!!) 3) Use the updated WPA security when you can (some devices can only use the old one) 4) Use a long password, that has numbers and a few capital letters in it. These are much harder to crack or guess. 5) Hide the SSID (makes it a little bit harder to find the wifi signal) 6) Download software that shows who is on your network - whoisonmywifi is an easy way of doing it. For the nerds, you can get into your router settings to view, however, it will only show someone who is currently on. 7) Turn down the range on your router, so that there are less neighbours able to get on. Ironically I had done all of this, yet still fell victim. How? Firstly, it had gone on for months, without my knowledge, but it was only today, when I received the dreaded your download limit has almost been reached, and we will shape your internet speed email arrived. Thats a strange email to arrive to me on a wednesday morning, as it is email is usually triggered on a weekend when my boys have been downloading all weekend when they are with me! I checked into my iinet account, and found that I had used 10 Gig today, before 9am!. (I use less than half a gig a day). And was still downloading a solid gig per hour when I knew that nothing was being used. Cue a quick google search on wifi theft, hacking, prevention, diagnosis, etc etc I got stung this way- when you first log into the modem, on mine (a belkin, btw), you do not have to enter a password to get into the control panel of the modem. The modem never asked me, or forced me to reset it. Thus, even though I thought I had it set up correctly, effectively, with an almost impossible to guess random password, anyone could log into my modem, then view, copy and paste my password into their computer, and stay on with my having no idea what had happened! Feel free to share this on your wall so your family and friends can know about this serious computer issue. Kindest regards Dr Paul Stephens 7to7dentist 36 Cary St Wyoming NSW 2250 1300 661 771
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 07:16:39 +0000
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