hacked

[farnand1]

I was told today that this person sat in my driveway and hacked into my computer. He said it was not against the law as long as he did'nt steal anything. What do I need to do to keep him from hacking into my computer. I have netgear wireless router, windows XP and roadrunner. I run AvG free edition anti virus. How is he getting in my computer ?
Thank you farnand1

[Rainbow32]

Post this in the networking forum and I'm sure they'll give you some ways to secure your wireless network.
A shotgun will get'em off the driveway.

[bAdWaYz]

Hi there,
First let me clear something up that most folks new to networking seem to misunderstand. A anti-virus program such as AVG isn't for stopping and won't keep you from getting hacked. All AVG does is scan the computer for viruses based on deffinicitons it gets from its daily updates "so be sure to set it to update everyday for the newest batch or updates to stay safe". Now about getting "hacked" or for a better way of thinking having your network accessed without your concent. Tools to stop people from getting into your network or computer are most commenly refered to as firewalls. The good news is most home based routers come with pretty nice built in hardware firewalls. This basically means that inside the router on a chip there is a firewall that you can turn on or off and enable or disable options based on what you want it to do. For most home users this just means to make sure its enable and leave it enabled no need to touch it. Other options for routers and most importantly wireless routers are wireless security options. If you have a wireless router you would need to log into the routers setup area and enable some of these options. If you know how to log into the router great we can skip that step, but if you need help with that post back here with the model, and ver number of the router. Once logged into the router the thing to do would be to turn on wireless MAC filtering.

Wireless MAC filtering will only allow computers with MAC address mathcing the ones in its list to access the network. The easy way to do this would be to go around to all the computers on your network. Open a command promt by going to Start/Run in the run box type cmd and hit enter. Now in the black box at the flashing promt type the command ipconfig /all
thats ipconfig followed by a space then forward slash and the word all. Now it should list a heap of numbers and such. Just look down for your wireless adapter then look for its "Physical Address" it will look something like this:

OE-OD-F1-BC-D9-A2

Your numbers and letters will be different but thats just an example of what you are looking for. Now write that down and do the same thing for all the computer you want to access to the network. Now with your list in hand head over and log into the router. Find the Wireless MAC Filter option and click it. You will most likely see a list of blank place to fill in the MAC addresses. Just enter each MAC address on your list into its own blank and save when done.

At this point now only computer with MAC addresses matching whats on the list should be able to connect to the network. Another thing you can do is to enable WEP or WPA security on the router. Some routers do both some only do WEP. Either way what WEP or WPA will do is only allow computers that have the access key "WEP or WPA" encrypction key to connect to the network. This is just another layer of security. Not failsafe but it will keep most folks from screwing around with a closed network when there are more than likely 100 open networks within range. To setup WEP or WPA you would need to enable it then set a key or passphrase. Then for any wireless computers on your network you would need to enter the key or passphrase into it before you can connect to the network. The wired computers woldn't need to be touched it doesn't effect them.

I know this was alot of ground to cover in one topic but that is a very basic rundown of what you can do to better secure your network. If you need any help or have more question feel free to post back in this topic and we can take it from there. This may seem like too much to take it but take it all one step at a time and it will seem easier, plus you can always print this topic for reading as you go so as not to get lost.

*****As a side note the command for ipconfig and getting to it was for Windows XP,and 2K. IF you need to do it for Windows ME,98SE, or 98 just let us know and we can show you how.

[oracle128]

I was told today that this person sat in my driveway and hacked into my computer. He said it was not against the law as long as he did'nt steal anything.First of all, if he's in your driveway, he's on your property. Tell him he's trespassing and to move on. If he refuses, call the police. Secondly, it depends on what exactly he's doing with your computer/network. If he's just connecting to your network, I don't believe that's illegal in the majority of the US. However, as soon as he starts using your internet, or viewing/transferring data over the network, he's accessing it illegally. However, these are state laws, not federal, so you will need to check. Or even better, just call the police anyway. Let them (and the courts) decide if it's illegal or not. If they don't arrest him, it'll at least scare him enough to not do it again, or at least give you enough time to secure your network. There has been one such case (http://www.techspot.com/news/18018-man-arrested-for-wifi-stealing.html) where someone was arrested for just for using the internet. The guy was sent to prison. If you don't call the police, I suggest at the very least printing off the article and giving it to your thief as a warning, to show you mean business.

[renegade600]

I was told today that this person sat in my driveway and hacked into my computer. He said it was not against the law as long as he did'nt steal anything. What do I need to do to keep him from hacking into my computer. I have netgear wireless router, windows XP and roadrunner. I run AvG free edition anti virus. How is he getting in my computer ?
Thank you farnand1

just call the cops next time. Also you need to secure your system better. see this from microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/security/wireless.mspx)

[farnand1]

Bad, thank you for so much information but i do not know how to get into my netgear setup to enable security. My router is netgear mr814 v2. Is that all you needed to tell me how to get into setup ? Thank you farnand1

[zipulrich]

Open a browser and type in 198.162.0.1 and press <enter>. That will get you into the router's setup pages.

[z1p]

Hi there,
... Now about getting "hacked" or for a better way of thinking having your network accessed without your concent. Tools to stop people from getting into your network or computer are most commenly refered to as firewalls. The good news is most home based routers come with pretty nice built in hardware firewalls. This basically means that inside the router on a chip there is a firewall that you can turn on or off and enable or disable options based on what you want it to do. For most home users this just means to make sure its enable and leave it enabled no need to touch it. Other options for routers and most importantly wireless routers are wireless security options. If you have a wireless router you would need to log into the routers setup area and enable some of these options. If you know how to log into the router great we can skip that step, but if you need help with that post back here with the model, and ver number of the router. Once logged into the router the thing to do would be to turn on wireless MAC filtering.

Wireless MAC filtering will only allow computers with MAC address mathcing the ones in its list to access the network.

...

At this point now only computer with MAC addresses matching whats on the list should be able to connect to the network. Another thing you can do is to enable WEP or WPA security on the router. Some routers do both some only do WEP. Either way what WEP or WPA will do is only allow computers that have the access key "WEP or WPA" encrypction key to connect to the network. This is just another layer of security. Not failsafe but it will keep most folks from screwing around with a closed network when there are more than likely 100 open networks within range.
...I'd like to elaborate a little on bAdWaYz post. What he said about the router's fconnects to the router wirelessly bypasses the firewall. (The firewalll only protects the internet connection.)

Second, using WEP/WPA is more important than the MAC filter. While setting up a MAC filter will prevent someone else from wireless joining your network, it does not prevent someone from 'eavesdropping' on your wireless network traffic and seeing everything you do over it. To protect the information you send over the wireless connection, you need to configure WEP/WPA.