Safeguarding Your Wireless Network

Life has never been this fast-paced before and for this reason, we simply need to have more freedom to cope with its demands. One of such freedoms we've been enjoying greatly is wireless networking. With our laptops, we can now bring our tasks everywhere we go and need not be confined to a physical place of work. That means more thigns done, more things done faster and definitely, more goals achieved. However, even with this benefit of wireless technology, there are risks involved and wardriving appears to be the most serious. Wardriving is a technique used by hackers who illegally access other people's wirelessly connected computers using their own laptops and scanner programs. What they do is drive around town and look for a spot where they can detect an unsecured wireless network they can connect to. Then they will connect and start sniffing information from other laptops in the network.

Imagine if they were wardriving your wireless network at home with your laptop containing confidential information about the company you work for. The possibilities are endless. They could snatch that information and use it against you, whether for kicks or to extort money from you. Worse, they could sell the information to your company's competitors and leave you in hot water with your business partners or your bosses. Or if you had your own personal private details saved there like your bank account number, credit card user names and passwords and the like, they could snatch those details and start using your accounts without your knowledge. These are definitely discomforting scenarios you wouldn't want to figure in. That's why you need to take extra precautions to ensure the safety of your files.

You can begin by changing the default settings on your router - that means your usernames, passwords and other details meant to secure your network. Built-in security measures are usually available with your wireless device such as the wireless encryption protocol (WEP) or the Wifi protected access (WPA), the latter being more preferable because it's newer and more effective. Your firewalls are, of course, indispensable especially when you're wirelessly connected. You can have a choice between software firewalls for each laptop in your home network or a hardware firewall that works at once for all attached devices.

Besides, even if you didn't have any sensitive information in your computer, some hackers could leave you some nasty codes that can wreak havoc in your network. These can be anything from viruses to worms to Trojans and even keyloggers which are programs that log everything you type into your computer through your keyboard. You may not have saved your credit card information in your hard drive, but when you need to enter it when buying something online, they could snatch that using those codes. To be sure, use every possible measure you can use to secure your files.

Another thing you can do is to install an IP changing software to beef up your Internet security. While this won't work to ward off wardrivers, it can keep you safe while surfing the web. Because your IP is your unique identifier while you're online, you escape hackers by misleading them with the fake IP supplied by your software. This means that even if you end up in unsafe sites, you can't leave a trail they can follow to access your computer.

Of course, this means safety and this is possible with the use an IP changer that allows you to mask your real IP address, surf anonymously and provide significant protection for your computer or network.

By Brad M Smith
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