How do i know if my wifi is secure

seert

As the title says i'm not sure whether my wifi is locked or not.

bsms1147

You should see lots of 1s and 0s moving through the air from your router to your computer(s). If any of these are ending up elsewhere, perhaps in your lounge or in the oven, then it is likely not secured.

colin79666

Download this:
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

It will show you all the wifi networks in range and what security is on them.

macman

You need to be on WPA or one of it's variants: WEP is hacked in seconds and is effectively obsolete.

hearts

I have never had mine secure. It's easy to do but serves very little purpose as the likely hood of anyone getting into your PCs from it are less than minimal.If you want to do it log into your router and set a username and password.

colin79666

hearts wrote: »

I have never had mine secure. It's easy to do but serves very little purpose as the likely hood of anyone getting into your PCs from it are less than minimal.If you want to do it log into your router and set a username and password.

:doh:

It isn't just about someone getting into your PC. How about capturing the traffic going through your router (LAN and WAN)? Also simply using your connection to do various illegal things which will come back to you as the account holder?

Seriously, ideally you also want to turn off WPS as it just provides a means of getting the WPA key in about 8 hours of brute force work.

seert

colin79666 wrote: »

Download this:
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

It will show you all the wifi networks in range and what security is on them.

Had a look at this but don't have a clue where to start with it, it seems pretty complicated

seert

think I lost a post somewhere. My router is on wep. how would I change it to the wpa

macman

Please ignore the advice given in post 5, which is completely incorrect. Log into your router's web interface and go to the wireless section, there will be an option there to choose the security encryption from those available.
Post the encryption options available and more advice can be given. WPA2 or WPA-PSK are suitable.
The average 10 year old can hack WEP in a minute or so.