RealTown's RealTalk

Hi all,

I had quite an experience this week and thought I would share a little of it and remind everyone to keep an eye on your network security. This started for me when I received an overdraft notice from my primary bank. It said that an online bank I use had tried to transfer money that wasn't in my account. I hadn't initiated this transfer. The 2nd bank realized something was wrong and put a fraud alert on my account. Ultimately, we found out that someone had cracked the WPA key on my wireless network and piggybacked into my account when I had logged in because the only IP address that had accessed my online account was my own. I have closed accounts and opened new ones and changed passwords on everything. I also changed user names on lots of things. One thing I almost overlooked and thought I would share in case this happens to you, I renamed my wireless network and created a new and more complicated WPA key.

Be sure to change your passwords periodically.

Lisa

It is very scary that we can be so exposed when we think we have done everything to protect ourselves. I find it amazing that I can drive around neighborhoods in my community, and discover that I can go into so many wireless accounts with no passwords required.

I've told  neighbors that live close to me to change their network set up and add protection.  We have to be so very careful. I am also a believer of setting up google alerts for yourself. You can see if someone is using your name. Scammers are always finding new ways to abuse your private information.

Be careful!

You can also make your wireless connection hidden from the public (probably would not have helped in your case as they were sophisticated enough to break your encryption and use your login to attempt to do the transfer).  Another layer of security is to limit the computers allowed access to your network (using the computer's own MAC address.

Pat Hallesy