Unsecure Wireless Networks

Many people nowadays buy a wireless router and install it at home without thinking about the security-settings. Hey, it works, so?!

Last week I was in Antwerp (Belgium) where my girlfriend has a little apartment and I was surprised to see that there were so many wireless networks in the neighborhood. Two out of 6 were unsecure and I could easily connect to them, get a valid IP-address, surf the web, ...

Shouldn't the manufacturers of those wireless routers pay more attention towards security? There will always be people who won't see the benefit of a secure network. Shouldn't they be protected against themselves? In my opinion security should be enabled by default.

Secure your Wireless Network

• Change default name of your network (SSID)
• Turn off SSID broadcasting
• Block unknown devices (MAC-address restriction)
• Enable WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)

No matter how secure we make our (wireless) network today, there will always be somebody who figures out some day how to break it but this does not mean that we should make it easy for an intruder to break into our system/network.