The Little Geeni

Many people enjoy the flexibility of a wireless network and love the fact they can sit in their garden with their laptop and check their email. Whilst wireless networking is indeed a very useful technology it does come with its downsides. The truth is many people are not particularly tech savvy and will setup their wireless networking without implementing any wireless security, the same group of people are totally unaware of the massive threat to private data and their internet connections that arise from the no wireless security.

Having an unsecure network is like allowing someone to come into your house, plug a network cable into your router and start browsing the web as they please, you just wouldnt do it! Which is why you shouldnt leave a wireless network unsecure, it is inviting people to connect to it and do any of the following:

1: Download illegal content.
2: Use the connection for malicious activity
3: Intercept local traffic and have the ability to check what sites your visiting, your private data and even passwords.

This is just the beginning. There are many horror stories of peoples wireless networks being used and abused with criminal activities happening leaving the owner of the network responsible!

This is why wireless security is so important, if you leave your network open then your just asking for trouble, and you wont even know its happening! People can access your network from several houses down the street and you would be none the wiser.

So always implement Wireless Security, make sure that you are using a wireless key, preferably WPA or WPA2 as WEP is extremely vulnerable and can be cracked in a few minutes with freely available tools from the internet.

editor Computer Security Home, Network, Security, Wireless