Why You Need Wireless Network Security SoftwareIn the age of high computer use in a family where the parents and the kids each having his/her separate system with internet access of access to 9600 kbps dial-up access beyond 56 kbps dial-up access and broadband connections, apart from the T1 connections at workplace, the Internet and the World Wide Web have replaced the traditional media in providing news, weather, sports, recipes, yellow pages and everything that one may need, the struggled is not limited to just the computer but for the net connection time. The hardware and software vendors are providing many kinds of solution allowing home users to share one Internet connection amongst more than one computers. What is Wireless Technology? Wireless technology is the easiest way to network many computers at home. The Internet connection from the provider is connected to a wireless access point or router which broadcasts the signal. The wireless antenna network cards are connected to the computers to receive that signal and respond back to the wireless access point. The signal that can reach the basement of a home, can reach the neighbors also. The hacker can access your insecure system from a car parked on opposite of your house. But this can be prevented with smart use of wireless networking with extra precautions. Corporate networks are very insecure according to a December 2004 study. These corporations are business hobnobs where a lot of business data are handled. Though wireless network security software is a consumer technology, still, most of the concerned people will like to treat it as the monopoly of the corporate sectors. Insecurity implies exploitation at some time or other. So it is better to act fast and make the connection to be safe as far as possible from possible hacking. How Wireless Security is consumer technology? Wireless security at home is important for many reasons: 1) Any one watching can have full authority over the home's online activities, 2) Some one may have full access over the computer's hard disk, 3) Sponging off of the internet connections will imply that in case of any illegal activities conducted by a neighbor will only be traced back to yr computer. Why the wireless security is said to be vulnerable can fetch some interesting reasons that even if one tries to test the robustness of a software within sort range, one can find several of them not to the mark, no matter how narrow one may make the sample range. The concern becomes manifold because the weaknesses were detected some times back and no significant development with regard to security has been made. How hackers take over? Hackers are engaged in war walking (which may be a trip on foot, by car, by airplane to locate wireless networks). Each manufacturer uses a different interface for the configuration the wireless device. Limiting Access To Access Point The computers using wireless technology should be limited according to this solution. Every network interface card pus wireless cards has a Media Access Control (MAC) address associated with it. The wireless access points contain a mechanism to locate the access point which allows one to use it. A machine's MAC address can be determined by opening a command prompt window on the workstation and entering the command IPCONFIG /ALL to display the machine's TCP/IP configuration. However, it will list the machine's MAC address under the Physical Address heading. A protocol analyzer can be used to determine which MAC addresses are in use on your network. This may cause to bypass your address and accept the hacker's address. So, one should use the address filtering. Encryption is a good solution Older form of MAC access points use a method called WEP encryption, while modern access points offer a solution between WEP and WPA. In the WEP encryption method, one can decipher the encryption with sufficient capturing of data. The hardware can be upgraded to accommodate WPA solution. |