Can a laptop with wireless internet and no security on the signal be dangerous?

Question

I have a friend with a laptop who doesn't have security on his signal. And we wanted to know if anyone that picks up and uses his signal to access the internet could send him a virus or cost him money or affect him in anyway. And How?

Answer 1

Since your wireless is unsecured, it means anyone can connect to it and use the connection. You've got someone hitching on your bandwidth. Your connection costs money, so yeah, they're getting free internet of your wallet.

Since your connection is unsecured, they can eavesdrop. Sending passwords, through say, a login site? They can start sniffing. They can sniff your e-mails. Anything you send or receive they can sniff. You can strike privacy from your vocabulary.

Since you are using your connection, and it's unsecured, they can connect and probe your computer. You're in trouble if you have unsecured ports with something listening on them like FTP servers or HTTP servers. Besides, why let someone have a free attack on your computer?

Answer 2

They'd have to have certain tools to do it, but also your friend would have to be a target, something the people would actually want to go after. Anyone can be a random target, but there's not that much of a need to worry.

Not only that but you should be able to get into the router from the laptop or the computer hooked to the internet itself. Once you're in the router configuration you can set up a WPA2 password (like a long phrase or series of numbers and letters). Once the password is set, you can go into the network settings on the laptop, select the same wireless signal, then enter the same password. This way, the only way any other outside (external) sources can hitch a ride on the same wireless line is if they have the password that you just set on the router. You will have already entered it on the laptop, so just the laptop and computer connected to the internet would share it. It only takes a few minutes to setup the security.

Answer 3

All depends...the security on Wi-Fi isn't that great to start with. Some people just don't feel the need to be "paranoid" about everyone trying to hack their wireless network especially if they don't use it much. For most people there isn't a whole lot of info that anyone with the skills could actually get. The biggest worry is some 16 year old prodigy that lives next door with nothing but time on his hands a broadband connection and parents that don't know what he's doing half the time...

Answer 4

With my dell computer it keeps announcing that my driving force desires an improve because it receives a demonstration from my computer yet would not except or note of it. the concern is it really is my pals router and that i'm getting loose signal so would ought to placed up with it. examine into that or do a prognosis of the instantaneous connection. Too common.

Answer 5

Better to be on safeside. You may be having a virus or spyware installed on your PC. You insatll a standard antivirus soft ware such as Norton, AVG , Avast ( free antivirus software and Ad-aware, Ewido ( free spyware removers). You can download free softwares at
http://fixit.in/antivirus.html and http://fixit.in/spywareremover.html

Answer 6

Yes...they can do all sorts of things if they are a tech geek and it would look like HE was doing it.

oh yeah...if his 'file sharing' is on then they can actually get into files on his computer and get any/all info he has in there as well.

Answer 7

yeah you should check your wireless connection to creat a password so nobody else will use your internet service.

Answer 8

yes.

Best to use WPA encryption.

Answer 9

yes ofcourse....