Wi-Fi Security

The book I read to research this post was Wireless Security by Kevin Curran et al which is a very good book that I read at kindle unlimited. This book is around 90 pages so is quite short and looks at the 3 main types of wireless network, Home User, SOHO & Enterprise and how they can secure their networks. Believe it or not there is actually a website at http://www.wiggle.net where wardrivers who drive around trying to hack people’s wireless network can actually publish the results of their exploits. This means if your network is unprotected these people haven’t even got to try lots of wireless networks they can just get your details from Wiggle and start hacking. Many of these people who do dial networks at random can dial hundreds of wireless in one go and it will tell them if a network is unprotected. At the very least you should use passwords updated weekly in the case of businesses and they should be secure passwords using as long a length as possible and containing a variety of numbers, upper and lower case letters and special characters. You should check your network periodically for evidence of intrusion. In the case of a business every computer should have a firewall, VPN’s should be used to access the internet and you should educate staff on the risks involved with mobile devices and IM and wireless networks in general. Many of the tools used by hackers like airsnort, netstumbler and kismet can be used to check your network for evidence of intrusion. If a business adopts wireless networking it can give an employee the ability to connect to the network and internet for 3.5 hours per day which means they can be more productive. At least they aren’t searching for an AP. It obviously has benefits but risks as well. I did enjoy reading this book and do recommend it.