Moved into Dorms want to protect computer

Lordbob75 · 21 Sep 2009

TheSchaft said:

R0am3r said:

TheSchaft said:

Remember to set the MAC addresses of your computers in the router so that they are the only ones that can connect, and set the SSID to no broadcast.

This works for the average person, but is a speed bump for others. MAC addresses can be spoofed and SSIDs are visible to tools like Kismet, etc. I prefer good old WPA2 with a strong key.

I suspect that Lordbob will set that, and memorize the key...:)

That is in addition to the WPA key of course.....

Make it nice and long, like mine. 30+ characters ftw!

~Lordbob

gamepro127 · 21 Sep 2009

Pc tools fieewall free is easy to use and scored higher than Comodo in some recent test. Eset is my favorite antivirus but It cost money get avira if you want a good free antivirus.

sup3rsprt · 21 Sep 2009

The real attacks on a LAN are going to come from the network side of things. So the biggest thing to do is always have your Firewall enabled. Whether it be Windows firewall or some other third-party one. Antivirus is fine too but that's more related to stopping internet or e-mail based hacks.

Try to use secure links (https://) and e-mail (SSL) whenever you can. Because most systems and routers cannot protect you from a man-in-the-middle attack, where someone on the university LAN could hijack the connection between your computer (or router) and the gateway router. Then they can steal your passwords if you don't use secure links (a.k.a. encryption).

TheSchaft · 22 Sep 2009

sup3rsprt said:

The real attacks on a LAN are going to come from the network side of things. So the biggest thing to do is always have your Firewall enabled. Whether it be Windows firewall or some other third-party one. Antivirus is fine too but that's more related to stopping internet or e-mail based hacks.

Try to use secure links (https://) and e-mail (SSL) whenever you can. Because most systems and routers cannot protect you from a man-in-the-middle attack, where someone on the university LAN could hijack the connection between your computer (or router) and the gateway router. Then they can steal your passwords if you don't use secure links (a.k.a. encryption).

All good advice. Think like your room mate will :) If you were going to try to hack his systems, what weaknesses would you look for?

One thing you should do is check to see what sort of protection the school offers, and what type of connection you are looking at - is it a simple campus LAN or is it a WAN that is segmented? How do they secure it? Can you even use your own router to connect? See what you can find out before you spend a lot of money.