Is your wireless network a security breach
waiting to happen?
Want wireless security? Fine, click the WPA2 button during your router setup, enter a key, change the default log-on, and you’re good.
Still worried? Fine, turn off SSID broadcast, and you’re good.
The security threat posed by wireless networks If you’re really paranoid, you can
has been a hot-button issue for years now. even filter MAC addresses so only the devices you specify can connect
Are they still a prime target for hackers? to your wireless network, and you’re
Computerworld editors Preston Gralla and good. You’re still done in under five minutes.
David Ramel take opposing sides on the issue. In the meantime, you might want
to think about whether or not Joe
from accounting is locking his car
doors when traveling around with
a laptop that contains tens of thou-
sands of customer names, account
information and Social Security num-
bers. Reading the news lately, I think
you have bigger fish to fry than the
relatively trivial matter of securing a
wireless network.
Sure, Computerworld and other
IT trade sites keep pumping out the wireless security tips, but wireless isn’t new anymore. It isn’t a wild ‘n’ woolly frontier being explored by cutting-edge first-adopters ignorant of security issues and reluctant to jump through numerous hoops to be safe.
Everyone gets it now. These days, you have to want to be hacked if you’re running an insecure wireless net. You practically have to beg for it.
Even home users get it. I used to drive around with NetStumbler and find all kinds of unsecured nets. No more. Even though they have very little to lose and the odds of losing it are slim, home users are securing their wireless operations like never before.
david ramel Why Worry?
preston gralla Why Worry!
“Reading the news lately, I
think you have bigger fish
to fry than the relatively
trivial matter of securing
a wireless network.”
“If you’ve got a wireless
network and don’t take
special care to protect it,
you’re playing Russian
roulette — with multiple
bullets.”
shock and ignorance I once asked on this site exactly how a wireless hacker could steal valuable information from a home wireless network, and no one had an answer. Readers were full of dire warnings and expressed all kinds of shock at my ignorance, but no one could pro-
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