Like many of you, I have grown accustom to having a wireless network in my home. What would I do if could no longer sit on the couch with a laptop and read my email, or surf the web on the back patio. But the luxury of wireless can come with a price. Information thieves are out there, and they are actively seeking our personal information through wireless networks. You can protect yourself.  Avoid making these mistakes with your wireless home network and learn what you can do to be more secure on you wireless home network.

Open Access Point

Don’t make it easy for people to steal your personal information. Any security is better than no security. Straight out of the box, many wireless routers default to a non-secured state in order to make installation easier, so you should change this right away. Many information thieves will simply move on to your neighbor’s non-secured wireless network since it will be seen as an easier mark.

Using WEP Security

Yes, I did say that any security is better than none, but if you have the option to go with WPA security instead of WEP, please start using WPA. WEP security has been proven to be quite weak. Any tech savvy person can sit in a car on your street and crack your WEP encryption in about 30 seconds using freely available tools downloaded from the Internet. WPA security has been proven to be much more secure and in most cases easier to implement. Many older routers do not support the new encryption scheme of WPA but do support WEP security. If this is your only option, then by all means use WEP, but seriously look into upgrading your wireless router to a newer model.

Not Changing the Router’s Default Password

How many of you have never bothered to change the default password on your router? Seems like a very simple thing, but thousands of us never do it. Here are plenty of websites that list the default passwords for many consumer-based wireless routers. If just a few trial and error sessions is all it takes to break in to your network, it might be worth it to just take a couple of seconds to do this quick fix.

Automatic Connection Settings Computer

If your wireless router were on the fritz, would you know it? Windows and Mac computers try to make connecting wireless as easy as possible and will automatically connect to the next available network. This could be neighbor’s open access point which for one, is unlikely to make for friendly neighbors if they find out you’re using their network, or two a little unethical (kind of like stealing cable). Check your settings and make sure you are only connecting the wireless networks you intended to use.

Broadcasting your SSID

Wireless routers allow you to broadcast your SSID. This is like the name of your wireless network. It acts as a beacon allowing others to more easily find your network. Newer routers by default do not broadcast your SSID in an attempt to be more secure. Not broadcasting the SSID will stop your neighbor from accidentally trying to connect to your network, but will not deter a determined hacker. Hackers have tools that will show them the SSID if at least one computer is using the wireless network. The real message in this one is to not think that hiding your SSID is enough.

Wireless networks are a great way to stay productive while being comfortable. I don’t want to discourage anyone from taking advantage of this great technology, but I do want all of you to be safe. What are your thoughts on the above mistakes?

What is Spam?

• Spam is a giant nuisance.
• Spam is a waste of time and energy as we try to delete it from our inboxes.
• Spam is an unsolicited email sent to thousands, and sometimes millions of email boxes with the end goal of the email being some type of monetary gain for the spammer.
• Spam works!

We get spam because it works. The reason spam works is really just a numbers game. A spam email campaign that targets 10 million email addresses, can lead to 100,000 to 500,000 or so clicks. Most spam is sent with the intent to that you click on a link in the email which will take you to a website where you can buy the product, see ads for the product, or be exposed to some sort of malware or spyware that will further exploit your computer.

Spam is also sent as a means to phish for information. Phishing emails attempt to look like they were sent from legitimate banking and financial institutions. You are often asked to enter your username, password, social security number, or account number which leads to misplaced funds or even identity theft.

What can we do about spam?

Be informed and smart about how we use email and where we display our email addresses. Here are some tips.

“Send This”, or “Email to a Friend”

When you read a blog post or news article, you can often find a link to email the post to a friend. Unless the site states that your email address will be kept private, don’t send the article. If you use this tool to send the article, they will have your email address along with your friend’s email address. If you really want to send your friend the article, then cut-and-paste the URL into a new email and send it that way.

“Opt-out”, “Unsubscribe”, or “Remove Me” links in Spam Messages

Unless you recognize the source of the email as being somewhere or some site where you previously gave an email address, don’t bother clicking on these links. Most spammers do what is called a “dictionary attack” on domains. They will send to everything and anything @yourdomain.com in the hopes they will get a hit on a real email address. If you use the unsubscribe link, they will know they’ve got a valid email address.

Enter to Win

You’ve seen these boxes with an entry form nearby which encourage us to write down our personal information for a chance to win “something”. Read the fine print. If you give them your email address and sign the entry form, most likely you have given them permission to send you emails. Of course, if you win, maybe it’s worth it, but you probably won’t.

Webmail

Gmail or Yahoo mail services are great at filtering spam and are getting better as time goes on. If you don’t already have one of these accounts, get one or both and start forwarding your mail there (don’t do this for your corporate mail). The filters will catch most spam and keep it out of your inbox.

Plus Addressing

Use a junk webmail account for registrations, newsletters, and contact forms from sites your not sure about. If you use Gmail, they also have something called “plus addressing”. Say your email address is joeuser@gmail.com and you sign up for something that requires you to enter an email address. Instead of entering joeuser@gmail.com enter joeuser+registrationsite@gmail.com or joeuser+questionablesite@gmail.com. You will still get the email, but now you can setup a Gmail filter to move any messages sent to address joeuser+questionablesite@gmail.com to a special folder. This is also a good way to see if the site you registered on is selling the email address you gave them.

Opt-out During Sign-Up

If you are registering for a site’s newsletter or other services, make sure to look for the checkbox to “opt-out” from other services. Most will try to send you “related” info from affiliates. Don’t fall for it.

Change the Address

If you want to participate in online forums, or have your email published on a site for some reason. Change the address slightly so that humans can understand what it is but bots that crawl websites for valid email addresses won’t find it. For example, don’t list jouser@gmail.com, list joeuser at gmail dot com, or joeuser@@gmail dot com. This will confuse the bots but the human reading this will understand how to reach you.

Website Contact

If you own a website, don’t put your email address on the site. Either use the “change the address” method above, or use a contact form to receive correspondence. A contact form is sometimes desired since the user doesn’t have to open their email program to send you a message.

Never Reply

Never reply to an email you think might be spam. The spammers will win if you do this. They have an address that is valid and that they can sell.

What are some of the techniques you use to fight spam? Do you have any suggestions? By the way, if you “email this” post to a friend, I promise to keep your email addresses private.