Tips on securing Wifi Laptop to stop hackers using my connection

mrdunkleysexy

Hi all

As per my subject title would anyone be able to give me some advise please

I now have a Virgin Net gear router connected to my PC and have purchased a laptop for my Mum

I thought the connection was secure enough using the Virgin Wireless security (WPA) password system but last week when my Mum was using the laptop online and she was shutting it off a windows warning came up warning her that she will cut off three people connected!

I’ve completed disconnected the laptop off my router now until I can get tips on securing it correctly so that hackers that use our connection for their own online usage 9and which we pay for!)

Any tips would be dearly appreciated

Thanks

debitcardmayhem

It could be that files on mums laptop were being used by windows networking on other users pcs in the household. It is not necessarily an indication of others using your wireless, it would have been useful to look at the router at the time to see who is connected wirelessly. You can ensure that only other known pcs can connect by using MAC address filtering on your router. I don't know enough about the Netgear to advise on this but someone will

Beast

If people were connected to your wireless network, you certainly wouldn't get a helpful box telling you this - you'd never have any idea.

This is a standard windows error message when resources from a PC are being shared with other devices such as other PCs or laptops, XBox, playstation, media centre, etc.

mrdunkleysexy

This is a standard windows error message when resources from a PC are being shared with other devices such as other PCs or laptops, XBox, playstation, media centre, etc.

Ahh Just saw your reply above before posting mine

Hi

Thanks for the quick reply

Im pretty sure it was being hacked as last week I was on my xbox live which was connected direct to my router in my bedroom. At the time I thought nothing of it but the game was lagging really badly for 30 minutes and my Mums laptop was on downstairs?

gaming_guy

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

It could be that files on mums laptop were being used by windows networking on other users pcs in the household. It is not necessarily an indication of others using your wireless, it would have been useful to look at the router at the time to see who is connected wirelessly. You can ensure that only other known pcs can connect by using MAC address filtering on your router. I don't know enough about the Netgear to advise on this but someone will

That isn't much use TBH. anyone can fake a mac address pretty easily (WPA is pretty secure as it is without mac filtering).

every time you want to add a new device to the network (with mac filtering enabled) you will need to add the mac address into the routers access list otherwise the device won't connect to the network.

debitcardmayhem

mrdunkleysexy wrote: »

This is a standard windows error message when resources from a PC are being shared with other devices such as other PCs or laptops, XBox, playstation, media centre, etc.

Ahh Just saw your reply above before posting mine

Hi

Thanks for the quick reply

Im pretty sure it was being hacked as last week I was on my xbox live which was connected direct to my router in my bedroom. At the time I thought nothing of it but the game was lagging really badly for 30 minutes and my Mums laptop was on downstairs?

Was she using iPlayer/or any other catchup TV ? Or it could have been downloads eg Windows update.

debitcardmayhem

gaming_guy wrote: »

That isn't much use TBH. anyone can fake a mac address pretty easily (WPA is pretty secure as it is without mac filtering).

every time you want to add a new device to the network (with mac filtering enabled) you will need to add the mac address into the routers access list otherwise the device won't connect to the network.

Yeah I know but going to those lengths and cracking WPA is a bit extreme just to steal bandwith, I would be more worried about hacking into connected devices for Identity stuff. If all of the OPs concerns are that they happen when Mums PC was using the router I would suggest that OP runs MalwareBytes on that and possibly HiJackThis and post the logs here.
But as it could just be mum using something like iPlayer or the like.

parcival

I have a netgear router and as well as the encyption we have set up mac address filtering so that only our 2 laptops can use our network.

We also have the ability to 'not broadcast' our SSID. This means that others cannot even see our network.

[Deleted User]

I'd recommend using WPA2 with AES encryption over standard WPA (especially using WPA using TKIP encryption) as it's been demonstrated to be fairly straightforward to break and offers little protection over WEP.

mrdunkleysexy

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Was she using iPlayer/or any other catchup TV ? Or it could have been downloads eg Windows update.

Hello

My Mum uses the laptop to browse clothes websites like asos, very etc and watch Susan boyle footage on You Tube if that helps

mrdunkleysexy

parcival wrote: »

I have a netgear router and as well as the encyption we have set up mac address filtering so that only our 2 laptops can use our network.

We also have the ability to 'not broadcast' our SSID. This means that others cannot even see our network.

Hi, thats what im talking about

How would I be able to set that up so only my Mums laptop can be connected on wifi to my router please

thanks