How to detect illegal wireless tapping on my router?

Hey folks.

I'm using WEP security for my home wireless networking.

Understand that it is the weakest form of security... but I'm not very familiar with the higher-end security methods (such as WPA).

Can anyone tell me a way to know whether my network is being hijacked by illegal users? I do use MAC Filter and stuff like that... is it not safe enough?

Thanks for your comments

 

Just switch to WPA. It's secure, there's only 1 key instead of 4, and you can use a 63 character key using any character, not just 0-9 and A-F.

 

And set up an access list that only allows certain MAC Addresses to gain access.

 

To the end user, there is almost no difference between WEP and WPA. Except WPA is stronger.

 

WPA is better; however, even an open router should have logs available showing what has connected over some period of time.

 

@OP or those who are considering a higher form of security on their wireless, make sure you update your firmware because I was at a friend's house re-setting their security and needed to update their firmware in order to get WPA or WPA2 features.

 

If you are using DHCP, all connection should be logged with the MAC address recorded.

 

just check in your router and see how many connections are on wireless if it's more than there should be then obviously someone is connected who shouldn't be..

 

Yup that's what I've been doing

 

MAC filtering can be easily spoofed and provides no over-the-air encryption, so anything sent/received is in clear text and can be captured and easily read.

 

I do it the complicated way. I make my router think my desktop was a dns server and just ran wireshark on the desktop.

 

You can look at router status to see whose connect but you still cannot find out where they stay. But you can use this tool i find on web call moocherhunter to find out (use google to find out where download).

 

What do you mean wiretapping. Do you mean sniffing your packets? If that is the case anyone can do that undetected. They do not need to be connected to your router per say to do that and there is no way from preventing it. It would be impossible. Encryption just ads an extra layer so they cannot read your packets in plain text, but if they can decrypt them they can still read them. And they don't need to be connected to your router to do this. If your doing anything that top secret you probably shouldn't be doing it over a wireless connection

 

WPA2 is faster as well with its encryption algorithm AFAIK.

 

The thing to remember is, when you're going wireless, you are broadcasting, just like in the old times:

 

turn off SSID Broadcasting and Turn on Mac Address filtering. gg

 

That'll make it just a wee bit more difficult to actually connect to your router's wireless network, but it won't stop anyone from passively receiving the packets your network is broadcasting back and forth.

 

The best way IMO to secure a Wireless Network is to use MAC Address filtering, disable DHCP and use WPA/2 if possible.

* As AKAJohnDoe mentioned, MAC Addresses can be spoofed but it's better than nothing...the avg. user wouldn't go through any hassle to duplicate that.

To the OP, u can check to see if any other computer is on ur network by logging into ur Router. All Routers are different so I can't tell u the exact Tab/Section to look under.

* I read a Microsoft article sometime back about disabling SSID...I can't find it now but they were actually against using it as a security method...they basically said it was pointless to hide the SSID. This is coming from Microsoft themself.

 

Really are you doing something that anyone would really care about. No one cares about what sites you have visited, or how many times you have been to this forum.

If you are worried about someone getting free internet through your wireless, do a quick scan of how many unsecured wireless hub in your area. Much easier to use one of those then to hack your WEP code.

If you're that worried about it, then dump the wireless and run cables. There will always be ways to hack wireless.

 

Hiding the SSID protects against your next door kid trying to get in and steal your bandwidth.

 

I really dont think you should be that worried, they're not really going to be able to do anything with your data if you have the right encryption set they cant view it in text its all gonna be mumbo jumbo to them.

 

If you want really want to keep your network safe, use WPA2 with CCMP ciphers, and an obscenely long password. Disabling SSID broadcast is a good idea, but MAC filtering isn't going to slow any hacker up, your better off without it. To generate extremely secure random passwords, use this site:
https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

 

WPA2 and a very long password with lots of special characters and numbers should keep you safe, but there's one other really good step to take: Switch the thing off when you're not using it!

 

go to 192.168.1.1 depending on router.If you have linksys log is blank and password is admin

then go under see traffic, usually a high number of outside ip with a high data rate would mean someone is snitching yo wifi. Or you can use microsoft's connection monitor. There you will see all the transactions between routers and client pc. Then go knock at your neigbors door and tell him to pay for the months due or you report it to the police. Its actually a felony.