Is it easy for someone to hack into your computer when you use a wireless router?

Question

I have a wireless router so i can use the internet on my laptop. I have a program called surveillance pro and this morning i went onto the SSPRO and it says i accessed porn and also played my childs computer game when it definitely wasn't me or my husband and it couldn't have been my 3 year old. It didn't show any of this on the history(the history wasnt deleted). We just installed the wireless router a few days ago and this only started happening since then. Is it someone hacking into our computer?

I have tried to set up a password but when i did that i lost the internet connection and couldn't get it back. Anyone know what could be wrong?

Answer 1

It's possible that someone was able to access your wireless connection. My coworker was able to access the internet by using 3 of his neighbors' connections. My cousin used to use the wireless connection of a person in his apartment building. You should be able to set up some kind of security measures. Read the owners manual.

Answer 2

Hacking your computer when you use a wireless router is no easier than hacking it when you use any other way of connecting to the Internet. Exactly how easy it is depends on how exactly your computer is set up - are the account passwords strong enough, do you use firewall to prevent remote access, do you use encryption, are your operating system and applications up-to-date with the security patches and so on. In particular, having accounts with no password is a *very* bad idea.

What *is* relatively easy when you use a wireless router is hacking the connection itself. That is, a hacker could use your bandwidth and monitor your traffic, as if you have allowed his computer on your wireless network. Preventing that is not easy and in some cases is not possible.

Essentially, you have to configure your wireless network not to broadcast its name, make that name difficult to guess, configure all devices on it to use WPA instead of WEP (or no) encryption, and configure your router to allow connections only from the devices on your network, recognizing them by the MAC numbers of their network interfaces.

Unfortunately, in some cases a competent hacker can get around all this, too. The network name can be discovered, WPA can be cracked (just more difficult than WPE), and MAC addresses can be spoofed (but the attacker must know the MAC address of at least one device on your network).

Answer 3

Not only should you use a SSID that is not open and easy to guess use 128bit encryption and MAC address authentication.

There are software programs freely available on the web that can allow anyone to capture any ones wireless traffic and given enough time can decode the WEP and encryption key even if it's set not to broadcast.

Even with MAC address authentication nothing is 100%, a computers MAC address can also be spoofed.

Most of your off the shelf wireless AP's don't transmit very far, but far enough for someone to sit in a car close to your home and pick up your signal.

Layered protection is always the best defense.

Answer 4

Someone is hacking your computer through the wireless. It's a common occurance. You need to set the security protocols and passwords so people on the outside can't use your connection. Read the manual for the router, it should tell you how to make things more secure.

Answer 5

There should be a security code that creates a secure link between your router & your computer. If you're not using the security code then anyone with a modicum of hacking knowledge can hitch a ride on your router.

Answer 6

yap...somebodies is in your router,read the manual ,your have an option to set a username and password.