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Wireless router security

Does anyone know, if I use a wireless router, with PC that I will be doing transactions on is connected by LAN, will my uploads be transmitted by the routers wireless part. Or does that only apply to a wireless connected pc.

Tv program on BBC said only do financial work etc. if connected by hardwired homenetworks as WAP/WEP were as good as useless, UK Managing Director of Symantec (NORTON) on same programme said "you (we) need your (our) head(s) examined" if we do any banking,paypal,online ordering on wireless, no mention if hardwired to a wireless routers was ok.

Thanks about to order Thompson 585v6.
 
What programme was this?

As far as I'm aware WPA PSK is currently perfectly secure providing that you use a sufficiently long key made up from random characters (letters, numbers and symbols), not words or phrases that would be susceptible to a dictionary attack.

The current standard and prefered choice however is WPA2 which I believe uses a much stronger encryption algorythm. As above use a long, random key and it will be perfectly secure. If you are buying new equipment this is the standard you should look for.


WEP on the other hand can be cracked in under 2 minutes due to flaws in the standard.

You should of course also change the router admin password.
 
Thanks will be using a recon 585v6 from dsldepot which is a current model stiil, I shall only be using the desktop which has no wireles so it will be cabled to the router. Only worried if it transmits via aerial.

Think it was the money programme on BBC2, but only turned over to it when channel hopping. Norton CEO was quite adamant about it.
 
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Norton CEO was quite adamant about it.

I'm quite sure he is completely wrong, the problem with wireless is a very significant proportion of owners of wireless routers use no security at-all. Of those that do, too many hear/read advice to use the obsolecent, insecure WEP standard, which is little better than a "Private property - Keep Out" sign.


If you are banking or making payments online, your bank or whatever should be using https: or you shouldn't be inputing confidential data - so all data is encrypted and can't be read by any third parties even if it is intercepted anywhere on it's long route across the internet.

I would be slightly wary about using a dubious third party wireless access point in case the owner was to attempt a man in the middle exploit, however even then your browser will alert you that the security certificate isn't valid/ wasn't issued for that domain.

As for a wireless router normally any data send between you and a website would not be visible on any other port or the wireless connections, however there is something called ARP-poisoning which can be used to re-route traffic on a switch, don't think it would work with a router's wireless connection. Use WPA1 or 2 and you'll have nothing to worry about, or you could disable wireless while banking if you are paranoid.

If you allowed a nefareous person access to your wireless network, the most practical form of attack would probably involve copying a Trojan/keylogger into one of your shared folders and hope that you would run it, or modifying the router settings to redirect you to a website that would attempt to use a browser exploit to install a keylogger on your PC.
 
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