Wireless routers are cheap and plentiful these days, and they are becoming commonplace in households and offices that have high speed internet. These gadgets allow people to distribute their high speed internet throughout their houses or offices, to as many PC’s as they wish, without the need for wires. They have been steadily improving in quality and declining in price in recent years, and from my experience they seem to work pretty reliably. Wireless routers can also be used to network PCs together so that files and printers can be shared without the need to run wires through walls, which is an expensive proposition. Most new notebook computers have wireless capability built-in, and desktop PC’s can have wireless cards added for about $50, so with the addition of a wireless router for around $80, wireless networks have become a tidy networking solution for buildings that do not have Ethernet wiring already integrated.
I have noticed that many people don’t bother to do any configuration with these devices. Out of the box wireless routers do not have any security turned on, and they will work with minimal configuration. Once turned on, wireless routers broadcast up to 200 feet or more, and anybody with a laptop can connect to an un-configured router without the owner’s permission and “borrow” the owner’s internet connection. This is generally a harmless crime, and most people will never know that someone is “borrowing” their internet connection. But bigger problems can occur by not securing your wireless router.
If the “borrower” is a music downloader, there is the risk that he will exceed the maximum bandwidth specified by many internet providers, such as Whooshnet. Once this bandwidth allowance has been exceeded, the provider may turn the high speed connection to a low speed one. Usually there is no warning when this occurs, you will just notice that one day your internet connection speed has reduced to a crawl for no apparent reason.
Another danger that can arise by not configuring your wireless router as secure is that your sensitive data can often be accessed, changed, infected or deleted by the uninvited poacher. As identity theft becomes a bigger threat to all of us, this is Not A Good Thing. There is generally no danger if the computers on the network have individual firewalls turned on, such as the Windows firewall that comes with Windows XP service pack 2, but many businesses turn off their software firewalls to enable file and printer sharing. Wireless routers themselves do provide firewall protection, but only from people on the “outside”. People connecting to your unsecured router are actually on the “inside” of your network, and often have free access to your shared network resources, if your software-based firewalls have been turned off.
The first step to a properly configured wireless network is to set a new password on the router’s configuration menu, and then the next step is to turn on encryption so that any would-be user must enter a 10 or 26 digit WEP or WPA hexadecimal code before they can access the network. This is a very simple procedure and takes less than five minutes to configure. I urge anybody who is considering purchasing a wireless router to thoroughly read the instructions or hire a pro before turning it on, or you will be opening yourself up to some unwanted visitors who may wreak havoc with your valuable personal data.
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