Wireless Router

Graeme7777

Hi,

Can someone please tell me how I go about making my wireless router "invisible" to other wireless routers operating close by?

Will this also make my PC invisible to "pings" from other PC's? If not, how do I achieve this?

Thanks!

aidso

Once you have your computer synched with the router turn off the SSID broadcast. This should be under Security. I would recommend you set up your WEP key before doing this

damo24

Make sure you use WPA security, it is easy to hack WEP.

weegie.geek

aidso wrote: »

Once you have your computer synched with the router turn off the SSID broadcast. This should be under Security. I would recommend you set up your WEP key before doing this

Definitely not, WPA is the only way to go. I could hack your WEP encryption in minutes.

Graeme7777 wrote: »

Hi,

Can someone please tell me how I go about making my wireless router "invisible" to other wireless routers operating close by?

Will this also make my PC invisible to "pings" from other PC's? If not, how do I achieve this?

Thanks!

Why particularly do you want to make it invisible to pings?

Anyway, you can probably set your router to drop pings. Setting it to not broadcast the SSID is what you want to do to stop others seeing your network when doing a scan. It'll still be visible to anyone making an effort to look for it though.

Graeme7777

weegie.geek wrote: »

Why particularly do you want to make it invisible to pings?

I understood that if my PC responds to "pings" (an "echo test"?) then my PC may not be secure. Is this not correct?

If I've got the WPA encryption, router firewall and software firewall, should my PC be secure?

Thanks!

AHAR

On my Linksys router the option which will stop it responding to pings is called "Block WAN Requests"

kwikbreaks

> I understood that if my PC responds to "pings" (an "echo test"?) then my PC may not be secure. Is this not correct?

Normally a PC running under a router will not even be visible to the internet let alone respond to ping requests. It is the router that gets the ping and will either respond or not depending on how it is set up. It is slightly better not to respond to pings as doing so lets a potential hacker know for sure that something is on that IP address.

Turning off SSID broadcast offers no protection against anybody who is capable of hacking the WiFi. That basically means anybody capable of using google.

> If I've got the WPA encryption, router firewall and software firewall, should my PC be secure?

The thing that compromises most home computers security is the person operating it.

weegie.geek

Graeme7777 wrote: »

Why particularly do you want to make it invisible to pings?

I understood that if my PC responds to "pings" (an "echo test"?) then my PC may not be secure. Is this not correct?

If I've got the WPA encryption, router firewall and software firewall, should my PC be secure?

Thanks!

Nope, responding to pings doesn't really make your pc less secure. It lets someone portscanning a range know there's a computer there, but since so many people drop pings these days, and since botnets are so large, and more importantly because connections are so much faster, they can afford the extra time to scan each and every port.

Once upon a time there were buffer overflow exploits involving pings, but they've been cleared up now. I really don't think you've got anything to worry about in regards to pings.

Your PC is secure if it's secure, regardless of whether it's dropping pings or not.

You PC should be as secure as possible if you've got WPA and firewall, and keep windows and your security software up to date, but there's a conspicuous lack of mention of AV and anti-spyware software there. I'd get avira and spybot and give the pc the once-over, and scan anything before and after installing it, especially if you obtained it from a less than legit place, and do scheduled scans fairly often too.

aidso

weegie.geek wrote: »

Definitely not, WPA is the only way to go. I could hack your WEP encryption in minutes.

I made the assumption that this was a home computer/network. I seriously doubt that Phillis - the 80 year old retired nurse next door - is going to be trying to hack his WEP encryption. Jeez

Sput2001

aidso wrote: »

I made the assumption that this was a home computer/network. I seriously doubt that Phillis - the 80 year old retired nurse next door - is going to be trying to hack his WEP encryption. Jeez

Maybe not, but that chav in the car parked outside with a laptop may have other ideas...

weegie.geek

aidso wrote: »

I made the assumption that this was a home computer/network. I seriously doubt that Phillis - the 80 year old retired nurse next door - is going to be trying to hack his WEP encryption. Jeez

These days all routers have the choice. When it's no harder to set up, why would you opt for less security?

Unauthorised use of wifi happens a lot.

Jeez indeed.