creating WEP /WPA password for my THREE mobile broadband router?

Amprodude

I live out in a rural location where there are no houses near me, I have a WiFi router from Three that gives me access to broadband and a good few of my devices can connect to internet wirelessly. I just want to know is there need for me to set up a password for the router when there are no neighbouring houses near me? The signal doesn't go outside the house but could potential hackers hack into my PCs with my router connection connecting to the THREE network? I need to know this as I was a victim of a credit card fraud recently where someone got access to my credit card info and tried to do multiple transactions. I am upping my security on everything. Do I need to set up a WEP/WPA protection for my router based on my location?

Thanks

Amprodude.

Khannie

Amprodude wrote: »

Do I need to set up a WEP/WPA protection for my router based on my location?

You should. There's really no harm in having the password. You only have to enter it once for each device on the network.

GarIT

Amprodude wrote: »

Do I need to set up a WEP/WPA protection for my router based on my location?

That's like putting a paper bag over your head and saying you're bulletproof. You NEED WPA2 with some form of encryption if possible.

Amprodude

GarIT wrote: »

That's like putting a paper bag over your head and saying you're bulletproof. You NEED WPA2 with some form of encryption if possible.

How do i set it up for WPA?

GarIT

Amprodude wrote: »

How do i set it up for WPA?

It depends on which modem you have. There should be instructions in the box. So you know there's a massive difference between WPA and WPA2. WPA2 is much more secure.

Amprodude

GarIT wrote: »

It depends on which modem you have. There should be instructions in the box. So you know there's a massive difference between WPA and WPA2. WPA2 is much more secure.

I solved it. I now have it set up for WPA2.

Amprodude

Amprodude wrote: »

I solved it. I now have it set up for WPA2.

I thought I wouldn't have to post in this thread again but unfortunately I have to. Basically since I was set up this wpa2 for my router it has being nothing but trouble. I am getting dropped connections all the time and sometimes it doesn't connect and other times it works etc. I use a good few devices and they have all dropped connections at some time and impossible to connect sometimes. I have 2 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 tablets, 2 smartphones and lPod touch all that have dropped connections since I set up wpa2 key on the router.

What would be causing this? I don't have all these devices connected at one time or anything. Anything I can try?

Thanks guys.

900913

And remember to turn off WPS.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS; originally Wi-Fi Simple Config) is a computing standard that attempts to allow easy establishment of a secure wireless home network.

WPS has been shown to easily fall to brute-force attacks. A major security flaw was revealed in December 2011 that affects wireless routers with the WPS feature, which most recent models have enabled by default. The flaw allows a remote attacker to recover the WPS PIN in a few hours and, with it, the network's WPA/WPA2 pre-shared key. Users have been urged to turn off the WPS feature, although this may not be possible on some router models.

Its really easy to crack the WPS within a few hours.

Requirements

Backtrack 5

A linux based hackers operating system (PTD). You can download it for free here: http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/

Reaver

I’ll show you how to install this on Backtrack later on.

Alpha USB Network Interface (AWUS036H)

Depending on your machine you might not have a compatible wireless interface. I use the Alpha device named above. Its a powerful machine and works great for cracking and hacking all sorts of tools. You can buy one here: USB Wireless Network Device

A target network protected with WPA / WPA2

Obviously the network your attacking must have WPS running. If it doesn’t then your looking at a failed attack and several billion years at cracking that network.

Link: http://insanitypop.com/2012/01/how-to-hack-eircom-upc-internet-wpa-wpa-2-cracking-with-reaver/

Only use Reaver for testing your own network or networks that you have permission to test.

Amprodude

900913 wrote: »

And remember to turn off WPS.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS; originally Wi-Fi Simple Config) is a computing standard that attempts to allow easy establishment of a secure wireless home network.

WPS has been shown to easily fall to brute-force attacks. A major security flaw was revealed in December 2011 that affects wireless routers with the WPS feature, which most recent models have enabled by default. The flaw allows a remote attacker to recover the WPS PIN in a few hours and, with it, the network's WPA/WPA2 pre-shared key. Users have been urged to turn off the WPS feature, although this may not be possible on some router models.

Its really easy to crack the WPS within a few hours.

Requirements

Backtrack 5

A linux based hackers operating system (PTD). You can download it for free here: http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/

Reaver

I’ll show you how to install this on Backtrack later on.

Alpha USB Network Interface (AWUS036H)

Depending on your machine you might not have a compatible wireless interface. I use the Alpha device named above. Its a powerful machine and works great for cracking and hacking all sorts of tools. You can buy one here: USB Wireless Network Device

A target network protected with WPA / WPA2

Obviously the network your attacking must have WPS running. If it doesn’t then your looking at a failed attack and several billion years at cracking that network.

Link: http://insanitypop.com/2012/01/how-to-hack-eircom-upc-internet-wpa-wpa-2-cracking-with-reaver/

Only use Reaver for testing your own network or networks that you have permission to test.

What has that got to do with what I want to do? I want my router to be able to use WPA2 effectively without issues. I have no interest in hacking into it etc. I want it protected from hackers. I running it with no protection at the moment because its not working with any encryption and Three broadband don't seem to want to get back to me about it. I will give them a few days and then I'm ending my contract with them.

900913

Amprodude wrote: »

What has that got to do with what I want to do? I want my router to be able to use WPA2 effectively without issues. I have no interest in hacking into it etc. I want it protected from hackers. I running it with no protection at the moment because its not working with any encryption and Three broadband don't seem to want to get back to me about it. I will give them a few days and then I'm ending my contract with them.

You want to be able to use WPA2 effectively and protect it from hackers.
Even with WPA2 encryption if you have WPS (Wifi Protected Setup) enabled you network key can be cracked in about 3 hours.

The signal doesn't go outside the house but could potential hackers hack into my PCs with my router connection connecting to the THREE network? I need to know this as I was a victim of a credit card fraud recently where someone got access to my credit card info and tried to do multiple transactions.

A hacker with a suitable USB antenna will have no problem picking up your signal.

I running it with no protection at the moment because its not working with any encryption and Three broadband don't seem to want to get back to me about it.

Bad idea, anyone can connect to your network and run a packet sniffer allowing them to read unencrypted data. Also if you have network shares enabled it's possible your shared files and directories could be read.

What make and model is the router and what operating systems are running on your laptops & desktop?

Amprodude

900913 wrote: »

You want to be able to use WPA2 effectively and protect it from hackers.
Even with WPA2 encryption if you have WPS (Wifi Protected Setup) enabled you network key can be cracked in about 3 hours.




A hacker with a suitable USB antenna will have no problem picking up your signal.



Bad idea, anyone can connect to your network and run a packet sniffer allowing them to read unencrypted data. Also if you have network shares enabled it's possible your shared files and directories could be read.

What make and model is the router and what operating systems are running on your laptops & desktop?

I am using a Huawei B260a HSUPA Wireless Gateway. Two laptops are running windows 7 and my desktop is running Windows XP. I also have a IPad, Google nexus 7, iPod touch, and my smartphone Galaxy S3 running off it. Anything I put encryption on, it fails to work properly with cut connections on every device after a while.

900913

I've had problems with XP before not connecting to WPA/WPA2 and only connecting to open networks or WEP. A patch was realeased about 3 years ago.
Link:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/unable-and-cannot-connect-to-wpa-and-wpa2-encrypted-wireless-wi-fi-network-in-windows-xp/

Have you tried using "forget this network" and deleting all of the old network settings from the devices.
Maybe one of the devices like a moblie that is connecting to it and causing it to disconnect. I only say this because I
use my three.ie iPhone to connect mine and my son's laptops to the net, and for ages it would just disconnect both of us. I couldn't figure it out for ages but then noticed that it was always happening when my daughter came into the house.
I traced the fault to my daughters blackberry automatically connecting to my iPhone hotspot and disconnecting everything else connected to it. Next time your connection drops keep in mind any mobile devices that might of automatically connected and maybe caused the drop.

Amprodude

900913 wrote: »

I've had problems with XP before not connecting to WPA/WPA2 and only connecting to open networks or WEP. A patch was realeased about 3 years ago.
Link:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/unable-and-cannot-connect-to-wpa-and-wpa2-encrypted-wireless-wi-fi-network-in-windows-xp/

Have you tried using "forget this network" and deleting all of the old network settings from the devices.
Maybe one of the devices like a moblie that is connecting to it and causing it to disconnect. I only say this because I
use my three.ie iPhone to connect mine and my son's laptops to the net, and for ages it would just disconnect both of us. I couldn't figure it out for ages but then noticed that it was always happening when my daughter came into the house.
I traced the fault to my daughters blackberry automatically connecting to my iPhone hotspot and disconnecting everything else connected to it. Next time your connection drops keep in mind any mobile devices that might of automatically connected and maybe caused the drop.

I dont know but it works fine one minute and then another minute it wont. I have a netgear extender too and this also has problems with the encryption. I cleared all my old connections on my devices and still have problems. Can routers have difficulty with wpa2 encryption?

900913

You could also try updating the router firmware.
http://documentation.netgear.com/WPN824EXT/enu/202-10310-02/WPN824EXT_UG-5-8.html