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Be Wary of Wireless Internet

By Keith T. Chiles, MBA
 

The proliferation of high-speed Internet connections and low-cost routers has resulted in the explosive growth of wireless Internet connection in commercial areas and residential neighborhoods. This article does not apply to Internet Service Providers who use wireless technology or the various hot spots where laptop users may connect to the Internet while shopping or dining. While the convenience of wireless routers allow us to sit anywhere we wish and fully use our laptop computers, they also create a situation where other people can use your connection for purposes you may not approve.

   Why should you care if one of your neighbors is able to use your Internet connection? Because it may be used by more than just your neighbors. Your Internet connection may be used by strangers sitting in a car near your home. Why should you care if someone uses your connection from his or her car using a laptop? Because of the many things they might be doing with that laptop.

   There are many things that can be done while being tapped into your wireless Internet connection. Your connection may be used by a spammer, a hacker, a thief, or an eavesdropper. Here are a few things these Internet criminals might be doing with your Internet connection.

   The Spammer is someone who sends those mass-mailings we all hate. They use a computer to connect to the Internet and send several thousand e-mails to people who don’t want them. Most of us have been bothered by these mail messages and the various states have become more interested in providing legal protection from these people.

   Because of the increased pressure on Spammers, it is getting harder for them to remain more anonymous so they cannot be tracked or identified for prosecution. The wireless Internet connection provides the Spammer with the perfect ability to carry out their business: A high speed connection that is registered to someone else to which the Spammer can attach.

   The Hacker is a person who attempts to penetrate other people’s computers for a variety of reasons. It is often to disrupt the operations of a company, to steal credit card numbers, to deface their web sites, or to otherwise use the hijacked computers to do more harm. The actions of the hacker are criminal in nature and law enforcement authorities usually pursue them aggressively when their actions are detected. The Hacker must operate in a way that hides their identity so they go through a series of methods to hide their trail on the Internet.

      The Thief is someone who uses the Internet to commit some form of fraud, such as on e-bay, to use stolen credit cards, or to otherwise make illegal transactions. Many thieves use stolen credit cards to download large amounts of various kinds of illegal pornography. Thieves are actively pursued by various law enforcement agencies and they seek a way to hide their trail on the Internet to avoid being caught.

   The Spammer does not need to attempt to hide his identity while using a hijacked wireless network connection. He can simply blast away all night knowing that his trail of destruction will lead to the owner of the wireless connection and not to him.


 

   The Eavesdropper connects to your network and monitors what you do on the Internet. They attempt to record your transactions and may attempt to get critical credit card and other financial data that can be either sold or used to steal your identity for criminal reasons. For this reason, they lurk on your connection and record what you are doing.

   All Internet connections are assigned something known as an Internet Protocol address that is also known as an IP address. A different address is issued to each connection to the Internet and is recorded by the issuing Internet Service Provider. This address is associated with your router or other network equipment and is attached to all outgoing data from your network. It is a very simple process to trace an IP address back from the criminal act to the network that generated the criminal behavior. With a hijacked wireless account, that IP address will be traced back to you.

   Your network and IP address are your responsibility. Wired network connections are relatively secure, but an improperly configured wireless network connection can place you at risk, and make you responsible, for the activities of other people. Here is the reason that you may be responsible for the activities of other people.

   If any of these bad guys use your wireless Internet account, their Internet traffic moves around the Internet with your IP address. If there is an investigation for something like posting child pornography on the Internet, the investigation will lead to your IP address that is logged to your identity. There will be a complete chain of evidence legitimately leading directly to your home or business address. There will certainly be enough evidence for law enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant to seize all household or business computers associated with the IP address used in the criminal behavior.

   This means that someone driving down the street can locate and use your wireless network. This is known as war driving. They can use your home or business network to create Internet crimes, then drive away and leave you to pay lawyers to defend you in court. It is much less expensive to pay an expert to activate the security features in your wireless router and avoid these problems.

   No router is completely secure from the abuse of a very talented Internet criminal, but locking down your router can induce them to move on to seek a router that is wide open. Here is how to lock down the router.

   Some people will advise you to begin by configuring your router to not broadcast its SSID. This will help a little by not advertising any label associated with your router, but it does little more than that. It also shuts down certain important data and is generally considered an unnecessary move.

   I always enable WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy when configuring a wireless router. This requires setting an encryption key at each end of the wireless connection. The encryption key forces both the router and the computer to encrypt data moving over the wireless connection. Although this encryption has its faults, it must be cracked in order to be compromised and may send the criminal off to greener pastures. This protects data from eavesdropping and prevents unencrypted computers from talking to the router.

   The next thing I do to lock down a router is to turn on MAC filtering. The MAC address is a hardware address associated with each network interface and is unique to each computer unless the owner has modified the address. I set up wireless routers to only allow connections from known MAC addresses and add each legitimate computer’s MAC address to the access table. This allows only known computers to connect to the network and provides a little additional security to the network.

   No security system is foolproof and the determined hacker will get through just about everything put in front of them. These two security features will allow you to prevent all but the most dedicated hacker from using your Internet connection at your expense. Most will forget about trying to break into your system and will go on to find a more open connection a few blocks away.

Keith Chiles is the owner and founder of Keith Chiles Consulting. He holds a BS degree in technology management and a master’s degree in Business Administration. He also teaches Information Systems Security at the ITT Technical Institute. Keith can be reached at: 610-4883 or kchiles@time-slice.com

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