How Do I Secure My Wireless Internet

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

Wireless Internet network is becoming very popular as people are purchasing laptops. Laptops have made life easier as one can move around the house with a ‘PC in their lap’. Thus, people are opting to go in for wireless Internet connection that enables them to stay connected around the house. But, bringing home a wireless internet connection invites the problems of Internet security, if one does not take precautions. This is because there are many uninvited guests who are waiting to gain access to your computer network and upload as well as download unethical material. Thus, all wireless users should be looking for answers related to how do I secure my wireless Internet connection. The following article will cover some information related to the question how do I secure my wireless broadband.

How Do I Secure My Wireless Internet Connection?

When you roll over your cursor to the small computer icons on your desktop at the bottom right, you will find your user name of your wireless broadband. It may even pop up something like ‘Default (Unsecured)’ or something similar. Unsecured. This is one word that should make your antennas turn on alert mode. Your unsecured wireless internet connection is like an unsecured bank inviting bandits to carry put a day light robbery without fear. Any hacker can steal your personal information, password, upload malicious software as well as download illegal material from your wireless network. However, the wise ones will choose the best way to secure wireless network and have a good night’s sleep. If you too are interested in joining the clan of secured wireless broadband users, you will be asking the question how to secure my wireless Internet connection. The following instructions will help you with the best way to secure wireless network. Just follow the steps below.

Change the Defaults and Personalize Your User Name
The first step in how do I secure my wireless network is changing the defaults. When you bring home a wi-fi router, the login provided by the manufacture are usually same for everyone purchasing the same router model. Many users are either not aware of it, or are too lazy to do something about it. Hackers are able to identify the default user names and passwords and gain access to your network. The best thing to do is change your user name and password on your first login itself. And while you are at it, make sure you use a smart user name and password. Do not choose names, home name, or your pet’s name as your password. A smart hacker will have a field day hacking into your account with these obvious user names and passwords. Use something that is a mix of numbers, alphabets and special characters.

Encrypt Your Wireless Network Signals
You need to encrypt your wireless network so that no hacker can easily eavesdrop over your Internet activity. So how do I secure your wireless network using encryption? The old encryption option WEP (wired equivalent privacy) is so easy to hack that it can be compromised within 30 seconds! However, users are still stuck with this easy to hack encryption protection. A smart user will opt for the WPA2 encryption protection that is comparatively secure. All a Windows XP user needs to do is download and install Microsoft’s WPA2 hotfix. One will also need to update their wireless card driver. Then log in to the router administration page through the web browser. Sign into your account and go to the security page. Here, you need to select ‘WPA2 Personal’ and the algorithm ‘TKIP+AES‘. Lastly, enter the password into the field that says ‘Shared Key’ and save the changes you made.

Change the Service Set Identifier
As we still ponder on the question, how do I secure my network, we come to a step that many users are not aware of. Your router comes with a default system ID, called the Service Set Identifier (SSID) or maybe Extended Service Set Identifier (ESSID). In simple language, it is the name of your wireless internet connection. Manufactures provide a default SSID to their router sets, that is mostly overlooked by users. But, as you must have understood, default invites trouble! A hacker will be able to find the default and tap into your Internet access. The solution for this is changing the name of your SSID. Again, do not make the same mistake of choosing an obvious SSID name like your name, your kids name or your house name. Use an ID that is unique yet discrete and easy for you as well as other members of your family to identify.

Filter Using MAC Address
MAC address has nothing do to with Mac OS. It is a unique code or ‘physical address’ provided to the user to identify their wireless Internet access. Your router will record all the addresses of devices that will try to get access to your connection. This will help you keep a tab if someone or something keeps trying to get into your connection. How will MAC address help from this nosy problem? Well, you will get a quick view of who and when is trying to get access to your network. You can add the MAC addresses of your home network connections so that the device only allows them to gain access and no one else. However, it maybe able to keep off amateurs but prowling experts can program fake MAC addresses and gain access.

Use of Firewall
Routers have built-in firewall protection, so make sure it is turned on. This will help blocking anonymous requests to gain access. This will also help hide your Internet presence giving you better protection. If you can’t be seen, it is difficult to hack you. Keep your computer security and your firewall up-to-date with the latest software updates.

These were some of the solutions on how to secure my wireless broadband. The best way to secure wireless network is to avoid broadcasting connection. Why do you need the extra attention even if you have a unique name for your network? Read your router manual for instructions and disable the broadcasting option for your router. Make sure you turn off your device when not in use. This is an extra network security measure to protect your Internet connection and a good idea to save precious electricity. Hope these instructions on how do I secure my wireless internet connection helps you safeguard your network connectivity as well as personal information from prying eyes.

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History of Internet Security

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

What is Internet Security?

This subject came into being with the advent of the Internet. There are three basic issues – confidentiality, integrity and availability. When an unauthorized person reads or copies information, it is known as loss of confidentiality. When the information is modified in an irregular manner, it is known as loss of integrity. When the information is erased or becomes inaccessible, it is known as loss of availability. Authentication and authorization are the processes of the Internet security system by which numerous organizations make information available to those who need it and who can be trusted with it. When the means of authentication cannot be refuted later, it is known as non-repudiation. Internet security can be achieved through use of antivirus software, which quarantines or removes malicious software programs. Firewalls can determine which particular websites can be viewed and block deleterious content.

History of the Internet

In the beginning, the Internet did not exist. There were no computer networks to be found. There was no e-mail facility, and people used postal mail or the telephone to communicate. The extremely busy sent telegrams. Few people used ugly names as a euphemism for others whom they had never met. The Internet has dramatically changed all this. The Internet, started as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). It was a tiny, isolated and restricted community.

By 1996, the Internet connected an estimated 13 million computers in 195 countries on every continent, even Antarctica (1). The Internet is not a single network, but a worldwide collection of connected networks that are accessible by individual computer hosts by Internet service providers, gateways, routers and dial-up connections. The Internet is accessible to anyone with a computer and a network connection. Individuals and organizations worldwide can reach any point on the network without regard to national or international boundaries or time. Today a local problem can become a global incident within a short span of time.

History of Internet Security

In 1987, the ‘Vienna’ virus emerged. Ralph Burger got a copy of it, disassembled it, and published the result in his book ‘Computer Viruses: a High-tech Disease’. This particular book made the idea of writing viruses popular, explained how to do it, and resulted in creating up hundreds and in thousands of computer viruses implementing concepts from it. On November 2, 1988, Peter Yee at the NASA Ames Research Center sent a note out to the TCP/IP Internet mailing list that said, ‘We are currently under attack from an Internet VIRUS! It has hit Berkeley, UC San Diego, Lawrence Livermore, Stanford, and NASA Ames.’ Of course, this report was the first evidence of what was to be later known as The Morris Worm. Roberts, a 23-year-old Cornell University student, wrote some software code as part of a research project aimed at determining the size of the Internet. The worm was meant to infect computers, in order to see how many connections to the Internet existed. Because of a flaw in the software code, however, it ended up exploiting vulnerabilities in Unix and spread rapidly, infecting multiple machines multiple times and rendering them unusable.

In 1989, there was the WANK/OILZ worm, an automated attack on VMS systems attached to the Internet. It exploited vulnerabilities in widely distributed programs such as the sendmail program, an intricate program commonly found on UNIX-based systems for sending and receiving electronic mail. In 1994, intruder tools were created to “sniff” packets from the network easily, resulting in the widespread compromising of user names and password information. In 1995, the method that Internet computers use to name and authenticate each other was exploited by a new set of viruses that allowed widespread Internet attacks on computers that have trust relationships with any other computer.

In 1994, Russian hacker Vladimir Levin broke into Citibank’s cash management system and embezzled $10 million into his own accounts. The stolen accounts were unencrypted and all but $400,000 of the stolen cash was recovered and Levin was arrested He pled guilty to conspiracy to commit computer, wire and bank fraud. On April 11, 1994, a full-scale epidemic broke out, caused by file and boot polymorphic virus called ‘Tequila’. In September 1994, the same thing happened with the ‘Amoeba’ virus. In 1996, the ‘Boza’ virus emerged, which was the first virus designed specifically for Windows 95 files. In 1998, the first Java virus ‘Strange Brew’ affected computers.

In 2005, the Bropia Worm affected the Internet. It targeted MSN messenger for spreading. The 2007 Storm Worm was a Trojan horse. It included an executable file as an attachment. When the e-mail recipient opened the attachment, he or she unknowingly became part of a botnet (a collection of infected computers) to spread viruses and Spam. Once infected, a computer is called a bot. It is an instance of adaptive malware. It has been used in different kinds of criminal activities. The authors and the controllers, of the Storm Worm, have not yet been identified.

Remember that your computer is also vulnerable to attacks through the Internet. Use of licensed antivirus software and proper firewalls can prevent or tackle this problem. Ideally speaking, your computer should be disconnected from the Internet. But this will greatly diminish the usefulness of your machine.

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How to Host Your Own Website

Posted on November 15, 2011 by

The Internet and its myriad of uses has taken over the mankind like a storm. I mean from shopping to connecting with people thousands of miles away to doing an online course, the Internet has conquered almost all the aspects of our life. Oh yes, it cannot give us daily workouts! Except for the workout to the fingers! Nevertheless, In this scenario every minute there is a website coming up. For these websites to be accessible to people via the World Wide Web, there are services. These services are like apartment or property owners who give a part of their house on lease or rent. These web hosting companies provide people who create websites a space on the server they lease for use by clients or they own themselves. But apart from that, you can host your website yourself too, as if you take the help of these web hosting services, it could be slightly heavier on your pocket. Hence check out how to host your own website.

How to Host Your own Website From Home

Well, hosting your own website might seem to be a bit tough initially. But actually it is not too tough either. Just that you need to be careful and should be willing to sacrifice your computer as once you decide to host a website, you will not be able to do anything on your computer, not even Internet access. Here is more.

Step 1 – All Clear
After you have taken a decision to host your own website, before starting off, check out your computer and make sure that you do not have anything important or useful remaining on your computer. This is because the computer’s data will have to be completely erased. Even if you take help of a web hosting service this factor might crop up.

Step 2 – Take your Pick
It is advisable not to use laptops for this purpose as they are supposed to be used for extended period of time. Moreover, in case you have a couple of desktops or so, you will have to choose either one and once you do that you will have to leave it running all the time. What kind of desktop you have and what processor it has won’t matter until it is a reasonably good machine.

Step 3 – Serve it Well
Be it how to host your own website on your local machine or how to host your own website for free, there is no escape from this procedure. What you have to do is install a web server application. Apache is apparently the best bet amongst the numerous options available. There will be things which will be asked while the web server application is set up. One of the most important of them is domain name and IP address of your DNS server. Leave the column as it is if you are not going to use a domain name.

Step 4 – Copy it
After the web server application is installed, regarding how to host your own website what you will be required to do is to copy the contents of your website with images in the website files folder specified during server application installation. Now this will make the contents of this folder accessible to anyone on the Internet. This applies to both – how to host your own website on a mac, how to host your own website for free. Check out more information in how to set up a web server.

Step 5 – Routing the Server
Here at this stage, you are almost coming to an end of the process of hosting your own website. Here you will configure the forwarding of port 80. That is, from your router to the desktop where you have installed the software for web hosting. In case you are not using a router, forget about this. You can give user’s IP address in case you are not going to use a domain name. You may also like to read on how to register a domain name.

Finally, that number (IP address) will go in the browser, akin to a URL, leading your website to be brought up. Congratulations! You have accomplished the task of how to host your own website!

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