Protecting yourself on Wi-Fi

Are you just Handing your Password out?

     This module in my Principals of Computer Security course we have started to work on our team projects. This project is for an organizations called Educause and Cyberwatch. The goal of the National Cyberwatch center is to educate individuals more about cyber crimes and issues and also how to prevent these from arising. Please feel free to check out the website at http://www.cyberwatchcenter.org/index.php. Educause hosts numerous events and conferences each year. Educause is a non-profit organization set out with the goal to inform and educate people to make the use of technology safer. http://www.educause.edu/. Both webistes can give you information and  gain better insight into IT Security.

 

Cyber Security Project

      This contest is developed for students across the country to design projects that promote Computer Security awareness. My initial reaction was I was very interested in the idea of the project! After discussing with my partner different ideas for the project we decided on basing our project around Wi-Fi Security. Since my partner and I both liked the concept about Wi-Fi security, I will give you a little reasoning as  to why I thought it would be a good idea to talk about this subject. There is a commercial of a woman in a café buying a rather expensive watch (more than 800 hundred dollars) having her look around to seeming a bit nervous, however since her credit card company offers text notification alerts she proceeds with the transaction. Now this commercial was devolved to be a positive notion about fraud alert. Those of us in the IT field might feel a little differently -or maybe just me :-) - about the safety of this. With entering her credentials into her bank accounts website, anyone around her could have stolen those with using several different methods of intercepting this data. Hotspot wi-fi does NOT have the type of security many people may think it has, actually in most cases it does not have ANY security. Any transactions using person accounts  such as banks, credit cards, and even social media sites shouldn't be visited when using hotspots. Now you wonder why I am so concerned even though her credit card company offers fraud alerts? Her entering her information into this site can give hackers the opportunity to steal this information, sell it, or use it themselves to steal her identity, steal her money, or find other sites that don't provide fraud alerts, enter her same credentials (yes, many people use the same username and passwords) and there you have it, your life savings is washed away. Here is the video of where I developed the concept for the project...

Secure your Network and Future

 

What Security Protocol do You use? 

     I am going to start by talking about WEP, WPA, and WPA2. These are security protocols that were designed to protect wireless networks. WEP, which stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. From the name of the protocols sounds like a very secure way to transfer data, however, there are many flaws using WEP. If the user of WEP is constantly do network activity, within seconds can the packet be captured that contains the security key to crack your password. Yes I said within seconds. WPA is a more secure protocol. This protocol uses pre-shared key and Temporal Key Integrity encryption. I will try to explain this for better understanding. WPA uses a different key for every packet that is sent. They share to same pre-shared keys (easy to understand) than each device changes the key. TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) is stronger than WEP and used to replaced it without replacing hardware however it is not secure enough for very sensitive data. This is where WPA2 comes in. WPA2 uses a standard called Advanced Encryption Standard (AES for short) in addition to TKIP that adds more security but requires hardware upgrades. AES user a key length of 128, 192, and 256 bits. I will provide a diagram to show you the number of combinations it would take for a hacker to crack a code of this kind of strength. (Diagram provided by http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1279619) Written out to visually see that is, bear with me here it's A LOT of zeros! 1,100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 this is the possible number of combinations to crack a key of 256 bits. Feel free to let me know what that number is if any knows!!

The Properties of my Wireless Network

Since in my previous paragraph I explained WPA2 with the encryption type of AES, I don't have to do much convincing that I have strong security protection of my network. I advice you to check out what kind of security your network has. I will explain how to find your wireless properties.

• Click on start and go to your control panel.
• Under Network and Internet click on View Network Status and Tasks.
• Along the left hand side it will display Control Panel Home. Under that you should see Manage Wireless Networks; Proceed by clicking.
• Assuming that the first network on there is your home network, RIGHT click on your network and view properties. (Side note: the other networks listed are ones you have been connected to before, just stored.)

      I made the process Windows friendly by color coding. Your results should look similar to mine, depending on your security type and encryption type.



     

 

Plucking People Around Me

        Instead of choosing a retail business, I decided I would discuss an application I have on my phone. It may be a form of "war driving", however I used  with the intentions to show viewers of my blog how easy it is to see what kind of security protocols people use. Or in my case, you will notice one person does not have any protocol in use. I would have drove around with my laptop using a net stumbler program I have install, but unfortunately my laptop isn't so mobile these days. Long story short, the back light is out and it can only work being hooked up to an external device. Anyways, after driving the distance to school and back home from school the results are shocking the number of people who do not secure their networks. 20 miles round trip, within each interval of my Wi-Fi analyzing app. there was at least one network in distance that didn't use any security protocol. If you are to download this app. the results will look different because I did black out the network I am on and everyone's mac address and network name for privacy concerns.

        Here is a video link which was watched  in the course I'm taking about war driving. War driving is simply searching for wireless networks using a portable, internet capable device. In the video they describe how easy it is to view the networks. They explain the T.J.maxx attack and more. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3538299n 

Peer 2 Peer File Sharing

        Finally, before I finish this post I would let to talk about peer to peer file sharing. If you use file sharing sites, you may think twice after reading this post. Peer-2-peer sites allow users to download and upload music, videos, software, documents, and such. In most cases, they are illegal. I say most cases because using it to upload documents and company videos for other employees is legal. But for the most part they are used to share music, movies, and software illegally. Didn't know what you were doing is illegal or thinking that it is ok because those industries are very wealthy think again. According to the Record industry association of America (https://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=What-is-Online-Piracy), each year there is more than 70, 000 jobs and 2 billion dollars worth of lost wages due to peer-2-peer sites. Downloading and uploading songs is breaking the law with serious consequences. Since music and movies are copyrighted, it means you are taking property from the owner without that persons permission. Fines for this act can be up to 250,000 dollars and up to 5 years of prison time. Having a felony on your record can destroy aspects of your life, having problems getting a career, living situations, and loans. Please be respectful to the owners and save your future and pay the 1.25 for music on iTunes. https://www.apple.com/itunes/features/