THUD300
Part Of A Complete Breakfast
Premium
join:2002-06-07
Decatur, IL
| How easy?
I'm a "noobie" to the world of wi-fi networking, and have a simple question. Apologies in advance if I'm rehashing something that's been beat to death here or exists in a FAQ somewhere.
Just how easy is it for someone to access your computer when it's on a public, unsecured wifi network? What are the best precautions to keep a computer secure so that sensitive information is protected?
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Your actual mileage may vary. Operators are standing by. |
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| When travelling, I use my laptop on hotel WiFi networks. I haven't been worrying about it.
I do have the Windows firewall turned on, and I do not share any files with Windows networking.
To actually access my computer, somebody would have to find a network listener that has a buffer overflow, and that is not blocked by the Window firewall. Since I am not running any services, and haven't made any firewall exceptions, it's pretty unlikely.
There is a separate question - looking at packets. Most of the important stuff I do is encrypted (https connections for banking, ssh connections to work computer). If somebody wanted to peek at packets for routine browsing, they could do that, but it would probably be pretty boring.
I hope that gives you an idea on what are exposures.
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AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.14 |
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Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS | Most hotels should have users on wifi or wired networks that do not allow user to user LANIP access. I carry a small portable router and usually stick my puter behind that. |
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SoonerAl
Old Enough To Know Better
Premium,MVM
join:2002-07-23
Norman, OK
|  reply to THUD300
To add to the others comments run a software firewall on the laptop and configure it to block all incoming connections. Vista makes it real easy to setup and connect to a new network. It has a feature called Network Awarness and configures such things as file and print sharing or the built-in Windows Firewall according to what you tell it your connection type is, ie. Home, Work or Public. For Vista and XP help with that see the end of this page...
»theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/L···ity.html
Run a good anti-virus and anti-spyware program and keep them up to date. I use AVG 8 (the free version) and Windows Defender.
If your ISP provides SSL encrypted email use that exclusively. If they don't you could use a Gmail account to fetch email from your ISP. This latter method is what I use. See the screen shots.
»Re: [Outlook] Outlook mail forwarding question
You can also use an option like Mail2Web to send/receive email via a SSL connection.
»https://www.mail2web.com/cgi-bin/login.a···d=0&il=1
An additional option is to use a SSH tunnel back to your home LAN while at a public hot spot and run all web browsing traffic through its SOCKS proxy function.
»theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/S···ser.html
Another thread on this issue...
»Secure Net Access in Hotel Room
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"When all else fails, read the instructions..."
MS-MVP Windows – Desktop User Experience |
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