Wireless Internet...Safe?

Question

We have one computer in mine & my husbands room & a new one in our living room for our kids. The service man wants to set up a wireless conection from our to theirs. The new computer has norton and all that ours does not!
If we set up a wirless network w/ a lack of security on the old computer will I be left volunterable when sahring personal info, banking etc? Any help or links PLEASE!!!

Answer 1

Well, your old computers are at risk no matter how you are connected to the Internet. You new computer probably came with an Anti virus Installation disk, you can just pop those into the old computers and install, if it didn't you can just download and install trial versions on Anti Virus programs from the Internet, there are links for them on the Microsoft Website the link is in the sources section. Just click on the links for one of them, most of them offer fully functional trial versions, I recommend the Symantec link (The second link below in the sources section). You should also have the service man put in an encryption tell him to make it 128bit WEP HEX, there are better ones, but this type would b the easiest for you to change later on.

Answer 2

Wireless is safe ONLY if you secure both the connection and ALL of the computers.

Don't let him connect until you have a good firewall - (Zonealarm is good - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
) and you've encrypted the connection - you can do this in the wireless router. See your manual for instructions or E-mail me if you don't have them.

Get some anti-virus programs on your computers besides or instead of Norton.
Each catches and misses different things -
( AVG antivirus - http://free.grisoft.com/ ,
Both of these are anti-spyware / adware -
Adaware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ ,
Spyware Blaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html )

Internet Explorer is big, slow, insecure (if you use it you're almost guaranteed to have some viruses and spyware right now), very out of date, and not customizable.

Drop Internet Explorer from use and get Firefox - sleek, fast, safe, easy to use, up to date, extremely customizable... and it has a cool icon.
( http://getfirefox.com/ )

Firefox has pop-up blocking built in, and with just one add-on you'll rarely see another banner ad!
( http://adblockplus.org/ )

Install the programs and scan your computer. You might want to stay offline for this - you're not protected until AFTER you do it.

After that - password protect your computer account.

Make sure to update your virus and spyware scanners once a week, and check for updates to your firewall... and operating system.

Questions? Comments? E-mail me at amandakerik at yahoo dot com.

Answer 3

No, if he does it properly all he will be doing is sharing the Internet connection- there is no reason for the computers to actually be linked. Even if the pc'S were linked your security software will monitor that link so if the other PC does get infected and tries to pass it to your bedroom computer it will get picked up.

Answer 4

Idea! Wireless is safe but make it a private connection, give family the code to it so only your family can enter the internet. If you want to make your files private, do not enable sharing. Meaning tell the computer guy not to share your files and make your network private.

Answer 5

no i have had a wireless network for a year. (but i didn't do it through my company we used linksys and just hooked up the cable.) Never have I had personal information sent over and I have never heard of a person who has had that happen and I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO VIRUS PROTECTORS on my computer. So that is sayin sumthin.

Answer 6

Depends on how you share the info. If it's in an unencrypted email then no. If you're using an RSA connection (that's when the locky thingy closes) then yes. In any case it's jst as safe as non wifi.

Answer 7

Yes. It's just like a cell phone- all it takes is a scanner to steal your info.

Answer 8

i dont know what you are talking about