I have recently set up a networking kit on my PC .I then put my laptop on?

Question

and it immediately detected it which was great but i got the message "the information that is being sent is not encrypted and can be read by others,is this normal or should i be configuring something else.How could anyone read it or why would they want to.Would they have to be in range of my computer.I am a wireless novice and all this puzzles me.I have left all the settings as they were when I first set it up.Any help appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Julie, I would go with bambam although my wireless network is not secure either however on my router I have resticted access to the mac address of both of our laptops.

You should be able to do this with your router by setting them up in your wireless access list. This could be in addition to any basic security you set up.

First thing you need to do is do a back up of your current settings. and change your username and password for your router access. Everyone seems to leave the user name as ADMIN and the password as PASSWORD. I checked our router at work and it was still set to these default settings lol.
Change user name to Quality Street and password to Strawberry. You know who I am now lol.

In setting find where back up is and create a back up. Save it to your desktop and call it something like back up 1 and date it. Now if you do something wrong you will be able to revert back to your current settings.

Somewhere on your router you will have something like 'atached devices'. Click on it and make a note of what is attached. It should just be your pc and laptop. It should show the mac addresses of both. Make a note of what they are. You can then restrict access to your 2 machines by the mac addresses. This is done on mine under WIRELESS SETTINGS, then SET UP ACCESS LIST. Then the only way anyone can hack into your network is to hack the mac address of your laptop.

Mac address looks something like 00:12:BA:71:5A:32

Martin

Answer 2

It means that your wireless network isn't encrypted, so anyone within range will be able to see all the network traffic.

You should configure your wireless access point (probably your router) to use WPA, or WPA2 if the access point and your other networked devices support it.

Do bear in mind, though, that even these supposedly-secure levels of encryption can be broken reasonably easily, especially when one has access to a large amount of traffic (e.g. your neighbours). You can spy on a wireless network from a greater distance than you can connect to it, so make sure anything you do that is sensitive travels over an encrypted connection (e.g. HTTPS when using a web browser).

The advice of an earlier answerer to restrict your access point to specific MAC addresses is generally sound, but unfortunately it is trivial to spoof these addresses with most modern hardware, so this step at best affords you some protection from casual would-be hackers.

Answer 3

It's not 'great' as someone else suggests.

It means that your wifi network is running completely unprotected and anyone at all can connect to your wifi network and use (aka steal) your broadband resources. The next implication is that to the law enforcement services there is no difference between you and uninvited guests using the broadband, so any criminal activity your guests perform will come back on you.

Set your wifi to use encryption. At a minimum set WEP encryption (you should be able to do that fairly easily from the wifi router end and from the laptop client end... see the manuals for each end component... but essentially at the router you enable the chosen encryption and optionally choose a key to replace the one they supply as default, at the client end you choose the same encryption and type in the key.). If you can use WPA or WPA-PSK they are more secure but some wifi cards don;t work with WPA.

The same settings will apply to all clients connecting to your wifi setup... which prevents random users being able to log on to your wifi as they don't know the key you set.

How can anyone read the unencrypted traffic? Well, by connecting to your unsecure network and sniffing the data packets with wireshark or similar tools... and then they can read all of your unsecured data... like account details, email addresses and stuff like that.

Answer 4

I'm not entirely sure but I think it means that data you send between your modem/router/whatever and your laptop isn't encrypted properly so in theory someone could see it, but it might also mean you might be sharing an IP address but it isn't anything to worry about.

Try reading your manual on setting up a network key as well, this will stop people from coming and using your connection without your knowledge as they will need to have the unique key to access it.

Answer 5

this means your computer is broadcasting in PLAINTEXT, so anyone with a 'sniffer' can intercept the words you type, pages you surf, forms filled out, passwords, all kinds of stuff....
so, what you want to do is configure your router for WPA/PSK encryption (write down your creative industrial strength password) and this will be used by folks to access your router (to surf, e-mail, file share, etc.
also, on the administrative section for the router, change the default name and password (again, xelent password); turn off UPnP.
on your comp'r: unless you are sure of the need, turn off 'file sharing'

Answer 6

its just becuase your over a network that is public meaning any computer that can get to your network such as your laptop is doing will be sharing that IP and can access the information..nothing to worry about it

Answer 7

ignore it!