Was I Hacked?

[jakelm]

Late last night, catching up on Polkies, my Linksys messege window popped up saying that "unnamed device connected".

I checked the device in the statis window. Turned out to be an unnamed wireless connection. It named itself Allison. It did not show wether it was a PC or Xbox or anything of the sort.

Now this is very wierd because my closest neighbor is about 70 yards from me and the road is even farther down my driveway. How can this happen?

I immediately went and changed my WPA security on the router for wireless connection. After than the "Allison" seemed to disconnect. Or maybe just showed as disconnect.

Was my wireless connection hacked?

[bobman1235]

Maybe your house is haunted by a techno-ghost.

[dkg999]

Most likely yes! My IL residence is an apartment and I had to put security on my wireless or I had several neighbors trying to use it. My Linksys wireless router at my farm in IA will let me connect with my laptop from my one building which is about 400 yards away.

[bigaudiofanatic]

It probably was someone out on the road trying to see if they can get free internet. I do it sometimes. If you have a wep key you are fine unless you are sharing files with other computers on your network your fine.

[bobman1235]

So did you have WPA on, and just changed the password?

WPA is nearly impossible to hack, so I'd be really surprised if someone made it through that. If you were unprotected or just had WEP on (there are free programs on the internet that can hack a WEP key in about 6 seconds), then most likely yes.

[steveinaz]

Yep--someone was "sharing" your connection. Pedophiles like to do this to remain anonymous--lock your security settings DOWN.

[PhantomOG]

might as well enable MAC filtering for your devices as well.

[jakelm]

So did you have WPA on, and just changed the password?

WPA is nearly impossible to hack, so I'd be really surprised if someone made it through that. If you were unprotected or just had WEP on (there are free programs on the internet that can hack a WEP key in about 6 seconds), then most likely yes.


No when I checked it was not on at the start, but at seen as I enabled it, the connection seemed to been lost.

I didnt think a connection could be made from that far away. Thats a strong wireless router.

[jakelm]

Yep--someone was "sharing" your connection. Pedophiles like to do this to remain anonymous--lock your security settings DOWN.

How do you lock them down?

[jakelm]

might as well enable MAC filtering for your devices as well.

I didnt see anything about MAC filtering. I dont want to mess up any of my wired connection with my other PC's or 360

[jakelm]

WPA gave me an option to refresh it? Or re issue a small 4 letter key. I really dont know what it was doing, but I picked the highest security setting.

[steveinaz]

Give it a security key, enable 128bit encryption, and then go into your "allow" menu and only allow MAC addy's that you specifiy. I have a Toshiba PC 5000 (I think???) so I don't know if the above applies fully to your setup...

[PhantomOG]

MAC filtering info (http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wirelessproducts/qt/macaddress.htm)

if you look up documentation on your specific router, there should be steps to enable it. Then you just need to find the MAC addresses for all your wireless devices.

[bigaudiofanatic]

Just us what you are using you will be fine as long as your WPA is on and your MAC filtering is on.

[bobman1235]

I didnt see anything about MAC filtering. I dont want to mess up any of my wired connection with my other PC's or 360

Wired connections shouldn't be affected by any of these changes - I'm pretty sure evne MAC filtering only applies to wireless connections.

[jakelm]

Thanks.

I think WPA highest setting, does enable MAC filtering. Or there was something about it. Now that I think about it.

I was pretty freaky. But I loved the fact that Linksys messenger notified me of the connection.

The funny thing is, I went straight to network settings to view the PC's on the network, and nothing showed up the the PC I was using

[PhantomOG]

I think WPA highest setting, does enable MAC filtering. Or there was something about it. Now that I think about it.

If you enabled MAC filtering you would definitely know it because you have to manual enter in the MAC address for each and every wireless device you want to allow. Do you even have wireless devices?

[jakelm]

If you enabled MAC filtering you would definitely know it because you have to manual enter in the MAC address for each and every wireless device you want to allow. Do you even have wireless devices?


Thanks ecactly what it told me I needed to do, but since I have no wireless connections I clicked finished.

[PhantomOG]

If you have no wireless devices you should just disable the wireless connection on your router. If and when you do get a wireless device, then enable and worry about the security settings then.

People can't hack your wireless connection if you don't have one to hack.

[disneyjoe7]

Wait couldn't that connection be another computer trying to connect to another computer for fun? Not another computer connection to his network, because I don't think he would see another device connected message.

A say fun when I started this wireless stuff it was fun to see what you could do, a little fun got really old really fast. ;)

[steveinaz]

If you have no wireless devices you should just disable the wireless connection on your router. If and when you do get a wireless device, then enable and worry about the security settings then.

People can't hack your wireless connection if you don't have one to hack.

Exactly, simply disable wireless connections.

[jakelm]

Wait couldn't that connection be another computer trying to connect to another computer for fun? Not another computer connection to his network, because I don't think he would see another device connected message.

A say fun when I started this wireless stuff it was fun to see what you could do, a little fun got really old really fast. ;)


But it would have shown up in either, the Linksys devises or computers on my network? It only showed as an unknown-unnamed devise in the Linksys window and nothing in the microsoft network.

[dkg999]

Maybe Allison is a hottie and you want to connect with her :D Did you check to see if there is a setting for that :rolleyes:

[PhantomOG]

Seriously... you should disable the wireless connection on the router. There's no sense in opening yourself up to even the smallest chance if you have no wireless devices. It just doesn't make sense to leave it turned on.

[jakelm]

Seriously... you should disable the wireless connection on the router. There's no sense in opening yourself up to even the smallest chance if you have no wireless devices. It just doesn't make sense to leave it turned on.

Your right.

When I set it up, I went the quickest easiest route. I think I'm pretty ok now.

This might be a dumb question, but BlueTooth cant log on to a wireless connection, can it?

[jakelm]

Maybe Allison is a hottie and you want to connect with her :D Did you check to see if there is a setting for that :rolleyes:

Dont worry, if Allison would have shown up on my network, I would have tried to hack into her/it.

SHe did, however, show to have a brief IP address. I noticed it right before I re/did my security settings..

[Jstas]

Wish I had seen this sooner. Seems like all the help got you to where you need to be.

As for war driving, I will tell you that even if your driveway is 100 yards long, I have wireless cards in my possession that can be parked 500 yards away and still drag in the faintest signals. Lock your stuff down. Use WPA security, it is very difficult to break. Use MAC address filters. Keep your security tight. I can't count the number of times I have sat in a bar somewhere or just pulled up in a parking lot of an apartment complex, started up the laptop with one of those bad ass wireless cards in it and just scanned looking for open access points. It's scary.


And before anybody gets any ideas about any illegal activities I might have participated in, a friend and I used to do this to make extra money in school. We'd go war driving, find open access points, break in and leave messages on people's screens saying they had been compromised and then leave a phone number and message to call us for a free consultation. Between $20 and $50 a shot depending on the number of systems they had. We'd go war driving on a Tuesday and have the weekend booked up with appointments by Thursday night. Between the two of us we could pull in a cool $1500 in cash some weekends.

[phuz]

Don't broadcast your SSID either.

You could have the weakest most puny wireless AP/router in the world, and someone miles away could pick it up with the right antenna.

[mutelight]

And before anybody gets any ideas about any illegal activities I might have participated in, a friend and I used to do this to make extra money in school. We'd go war driving, find open access points, break in and leave messages on people's screens saying they had been compromised and then leave a phone number and message to call us for a free consultation. Between $20 and $50 a shot depending on the number of systems they had. We'd go war driving on a Tuesday and have the weekend booked up with appointments by Thursday night. Between the two of us we could pull in a cool $1500 in cash some weekends.

But that is illegal and you left self incriminating evidence. :confused:

[Jstas]

But that is illegal and you left self incriminating evidence. :confused:

10 years ago you could get away with it.

[bigaudiofanatic]

Company's actually hire people that have hacked there system to show them what was the weakest port and so forth. In NY people sit outside and try to hack the business system after they have the go on in and explain what they did. Make quite a bit of money.

[phuz]

Company's actually hire people that have hacked there system to show them what was the weakest port and so forth. In NY people sit outside and try to hack the business system after they have the go on in and explain what they did. Make quite a bit of money.

These days the company would press charges, then hire a consultant or security pro to do an audit and fix the known and unknown issues.

[paymontna]

10 years ago you could get away with it.

LOL statute of limitations!!