Am I safe???

[ohsgaston]

My friend needs to know if her computer is secure. She has a Linksys WRT54G wireless router that is sharing a cable internet connection. Her old gateway laptop connects to the wireless router with a wireless G card, and her new desktop is connected through ethernet directly to the Linksys wireless router. She has no software firewall installed. The Linksys router claims that it has a builtin firewall, but is this enough to keep her safe?

[Iceman]

one word answer...no<BR><BR>whatever you do you are not safe (especially when you are using wireless networks)<BR><BR>crackers can scan 'interesting packets' which are being transmitted wirelessly, and when they have enough of these packets they can use software to crack the password etc giving them access to the whole system (can take anything up to about 3-4weeks depending on network usage).<BR><BR>there are certain things that you can do to tyr and prevent people doing things...these incluse changing the default password to the router (from user: linksys pass: linksys). having a second software firewall won't hurt anyone. Also any shared resources (such as drives and folders) should always be password protected. Try blocking all unnecessary ports (good firewall software should monitor this) to prevent unauthorised access.

[grafton26]

I agree whith Iceman <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"><BR><BR>wireless networks are even more prone to attack than a conventional network as you don't need direct access to the network <BR><BR>If I were you i would at least download and install zonealarm free version . It will at least tell you that someone is trying to gain access to your system

[ohsgaston]

But can hackers read the packets if she has MAC address filtering setup (sorry if I sound dumb)?

[Iceman]

yup...there is practically nothing you can do to stop stray packets reaching the computers of crackers other then having your computers and network in a lead box <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif" border="0">. The chances of this happening are very slim and for someone to do this they would have to be pretty skilled and tbh unless you friend is working high up in the government (dealing with secret files etc) then i doubt a cracker would be bothered to getting into your network

[ohsgaston]

Thanks for the help.