Do you watch your own wifi? By watch, I mean other than Alex Ledante, if I asked you at 2 pm what was on your wireless network would you know? Could you look at a list and quickly tell what devices you expected to see? It is not my intention to scare anyone. Nor, is this a cautionary tale of what can go wrong. I would caution this, however, when the authorities find out a hack has occurred. The first thing the authorities do is trace the attacking computer location. This is done by a series of processes. Why do you care?
Well if someone that is doing things they are not supposed to do, and they have hacked your home network, then they launched an attack fro your assigned IP address. They, the hacker, didn;’t care if you got compromised because it wasn’t them!
Let’s go back to the original question. Can you, at 2 pm on a Thursday tell me how many devices are on your network at home? Around 2 pm on Thursday there were 73 devices on my network (I know way to many devices) but I can tell you without a doubt what each device on my network is. From the various tools, I use I know what each assigned device is doing. I realize that I have more devices on my network than most people do. But if I can effectively keep track of 73 you can keep track of 6, 10 and so on. The reality of security is you are going to get attacked.
Either a site like Virily, or your PayPal or just your computer files you will get attacked. Manage your security by reducing the amount you are exposed. This doesn’t remove your security and no one is safe but you can reduce your risk.
How many devices are there on your home network right now? Do you know how to find out?
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Question of
i am not trying to scare anyone, about security ok?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
But if you have a computer that is connected you need to be careful, ok?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
The best view of security is, no matter what my security will fail, ok?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Be careful and change your passwords often!
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Yes
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No
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doesn’t the WIFI keep track of MAC/IP addresses of logins?
sure – but the wifi doesn’t notify you when a new Mac Address appears. Fing actually notifies you, via text, and email when a new Mac Address appears on your network no matter how many network segments you have (I have 8 for testing).
I know to the one what and where on my network at all times!
outside of a whitelist, that’s about as secure as you can get…
i would love to see a home whitelisting solution. Today the enterprise version works well but it is freaking expensive!
that’s BS- a whitelist is fairly low impact to implement. and I should know
the new whitelist reverses what you guys used to do at Symantec.
It removes a SaaS or internal application from public DNS.
so you are trying to use Salesforce for the company. You go to salesforce.com – but your company isn’t there.
you VPN into the company network and ta-da, Salesforce is there.
It is unfortunate that white lists (applications) have become a network capability (external and data center) but they have.
what if you ping the domain and get their IP address, can you get around it that way?
nope it isn’t visible outside the controlled environment. It means the hacker (man-in-the-middle) now has to gain access to the network (VPN) and then access to accounts in the whitelisted SaaS.
Yes they can do that. But it takes longer. Longer lets your IDS system catch them sooner.
or not.
that’s a very precise estimate…
Very interesting post. Thanks for the alerts. Can I check the network myself?
yes you can. Your cable provider should have handed you a router. you plugged that into your wall and then it created a network.
the IP address of that router has a web page.
You can see everything going on in your house on that web page.
Thank you. I need to check it out a bit. I received 3 boxes from the provider ?
have fun with the boxes and what is in them!
Please do take time to check your security!!!
I will check. Sometimes I get the “weird” feeling like strange things are happening.
Let me know, that weird feeling could be somebody using your network without permission!
Yes, Doc. That’s exactly how I feel.
Isn’t that can be seen from the internet access feature on the computer or at the cellular hotspot & tethering on the cellphone?
it can, as long as you are watching it!
Yes, you are right, and as well as about always updating passwords.
A friend of mine always says
“Everyone is going to get hacked”
the reality is that.
Your job is to be ready when bad things happen!
I care about that especially when an expert like you suggests it.
i worry about many, who are not secure.
…and I must thank you for your concern, Doc.
i learned long ago –
all the care you send into the universe is returned to you eventually.
I assume my connection is safe, I have had no problems ever and have the usual safety features.
well it isn’t, no connection is safe. The issue is how much risk is there. It is all about continuing to do the right things!
Thanks for the note, my friend … this is a great post … I got used to changing passwords
Thanks – I always worry about people and helping them be secure! I am glad you are learning to change passwords!
I have learned a lot from you, my friend
thank you, its time for you to become the teacher again. Time for another motorcycle post so I can learn! (or more of the lake and boats, that was a lot of fun to learn about as well)! OR possibly the goats near your house!
OK, dear friend … I will try my best to teach you something ….. goats are around us as much as you want … goats more
i learned about the Lake with rowboats yesterday. You teach me often!
I have a private and secure wifi which I check on a regular basis.
that is awesome@ you are well ahead of the game!
nice stuff that is really a good piece of advice..please also pen in about he tools that you deploy
tools are coming in a later post! Thanks for reading this!