Professor Geek

I received an email from one of my former MBA students today. Here is the essence of it:

I was a student in your graduate level MIS class last fall semester. We talked quite a bit about security. I had a very interesting thing occur at my home last night. I have a wireless router for hookup to the internet (that way I can be lazy and sit on the couch and access the web). When I
arrived home (at my apartment) last night, there was a guy sitting in a parked van along the street. I thought it was odd, but I just went ahead and went inside. About an hour later, I was getting ready to go to bed and could hear that van (still running) outside my window. I got up because I knew something was going on. I looked down and could see he had a laptop computer in there. I instantly went in and unplugged my wireless router. I looked back out the window, and after messing with his computer for about 10 seconds he instantly drove off. I know he
had to be accessing my internet.

My question: My computer was turned off, but could he still have been hacking into my computer? Also, what harm could he do under my name? I would appreciate any info you can give me on this. My wife wanted me to call the police but I don’t really think there is anything they can do about it??

I have heard of people doing this very thing, such as pulling into Super 8 Motel parking lots to have access to the internet.

My response to this former student was to at least use the WEP encryption that virtually all wireless routers have. Unfortunately, most of them are delivered with the default being that WEP encryption is turned off. If you want to make sure you are safe from such userpers as described here, be sure to keep in mind that this type of activity actually happens more often that you might think. Consider what these interlopers can do with your IP address (and you ARE responsible for what happens on your assigned IP address): child porn, spamming, illegal gambling, or any other kind of Internet fraud known to man. You are VERY vulnerable if you don’t secure your wireless network.

When I was running an ISP business I received a call one day from an FBI agent who was investigating some illegal activity that had happened at an IP address that I had assigned to a subcontractor. I was able to give them the location of the IP address for their investigation. Although I never was told what type of activity it had been, it had certainly been something serioius for them to be taking the time and effort to investigate it. Suppose that someone cruised to your house in the middle of the night, tapped into your network, and used it to conduct some illicit activities over the Internet. It would be virtually untraceable to that person, but the spotlight would be on you. Bottom line: Protect yourself … especially since the tools to do so are built into virtually every wireless you can buy today.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.