What Is Wardriving And How Can You Prevent It

Imagine a car equipped with nothing more than a laptop, a portable GPS receiver, and a wireless network card slowly strolls around the neighborhood. Unknown to any curious, this is not a common vehicle, but it is a wardriving machine. As the car strolls past homes and businesses, a wireless network card (available at any electronics store for as low as $ 25) scans for any wireless access points. Anyone with a wireless network (and there are many out there) is vulnerable. The team is seeking what is known as SSID. An SSID is the name of your wireless network, which is being constantly transmitted by your access point, allowing computers to know of his presence. The wardriver uses software as Netstumbler (for Windows) or Cismet (for linux) to scan the airwaves for SSID. The program can keep track of the various access points at once and monitor the signal strength. These programs can also check if the network is encrypted. The wardriver generally configure their software to access any strong signals unencrypted. Using the GPS receiver, the coordinates of the strong signal will be recorded. After this first disc, the wardriver can return to the places where they were recorded, and connect to the access point. Once connected to a network without encryption, the wardriver can use the victim of Internet access, and can also explore computers on the network. If files are shared within the private network to someone, all that information is susceptible to a wardriver. Moreover, once on the network, a wardriver can track network traffic and can see all the information such as passwords and credit card numbers to send to the Internet - even secured data SSL. Wireless vulnerability is a major problem, and as more and more households buy wireless technology, the problem of insecure networks increases. The sound of fear? Well this happens every day, and not take an expert to quit. It does not take an expert to protect against anyone, however.

Steps you can take to protect against wardrivers:

There are a number of very simple steps you can take to protect your wireless network. For many of these, you will have access to the usefulness of your router configuration (check your manual on how to do this, usually the type of need for an IP address in the browser, as 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 ).

Don & 39; t Your SSID broadcast. If your SSID, this is the first thing that a collection program and recognize. If your router configuration to its non-broadcast SSID, it will be difficult to detect (but not impossible, for some software can sniff out wireless communication, so if you are using your wireless network, the SSID can be revealed). If it is not your SSID, but it can be guessed (as if using a default SSID), cloaking is futile. Because of this, be sure to change the SSID from the factory default. This is not a 100 percent effective method to secure your network, but is a good first line of defense.

Change password default. When you buy a router, a factory password is stored. People with experience in working with routers know default passwords for different routers (and to make the router can be seen by wardriver software as netstumbler). It is important that you secure your router with a good password.

Encrypt its wireless communication. I can not stress the importance of encrypting your wireless communication enough. Enable encryption and enter a password. Most routers are only capable of WEP encryption, but if they permit, the use of EAP encryption, is more secure than WEP. Like its concealment SSID, encryption is not 100 percent secure. It& 39;s just a matter of time and will, if someone wants to target you and access to the network, WEP encryption can be bypassed using software as AirSnort.

Filter MAC addresses that are authorized to connect to your router. This would require that you enter your router configuration and input the MAC address of each wireless card you have. This will restrict access so that only your computers can connect to the router. You will need to obtain the MAC address (which is the address of individual identification of a network card in the form a 12-digit hexadecimal number). If someone sniffs traffic and detects the MAC address of a computer through its wireless network, the wardriver could emulate that address and connect to the router, but this takes time.

If can configure file sharing on your computer, make sure that is password-protected. You should not share files on their networked computers unless it requires an authenticated user access. Configuring the same user account on their machines so that their computers can share files.

With these relatively simple measures, network users can secure their wireless networks wardrivers. Wireless networks are inherently insecure, and is limited to these tips will help you get more from your network. If someone is really determined to gain access to its network, it is only a matter of time, a good hacker can get access. These tips will deter the average wardriver have access to your network, however. Although these methods are not definitive security measures, which will change its network to be something that can be cut in a matter of seconds, something that will take a determined hacker days, if not weeks of work, all which will be done while in the vicinity of his network.

The author is a veteran of network security, and general manager of Andertec http://www.andertec.com Enterprises, which specializes in the custom of the site services of the Los Angeles area. Andertec custom that is also sold to the order of computer systems, and has a line of products at incredibly low prices revolutionaries including the best-selling CyberHome complete package of home automation. rafaela kaila



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