security

Hello,

A friend of mine has a small business. She shares a broadband connection
with another small business in an adjacent room, using a wireless connection
to a router. Thay have individual email addresses.

She has been told that there is a security risk, i.e. the other business
might be able to read confidential files from her pc.

Is this true ?

All help & advice very welcome

Thanks

K



dido22

dido22 writes:
> A friend of mine has a small business. She shares a broadband connection
> with another small business in an adjacent room, using a wireless connection
> to a router. Thay have individual email addresses.
>
> She has been told that there is a security risk, i.e. the other business
> might be able to read confidential files from her pc.
>
> Is this true ?

Potentially, yes. Your friend should make sure that the firewall on her
wireless connection is enabled, and that file sharing is not excluded
from the firewall.

Ideally the wireless router should have VLANs set up so that wireless
traffic cannot be read from other wired or wireless clients.

As for the wireless setup itself, it must use at least WPA encryption
with a long non-dictionary passphrase - WEP is easy to crack.

Of course, the person who controls the router could do other things like
read the wireless traffic anyway (they would know the WEP/WPA password)
or have their own DNS server logging which sites are visited. Using
someone elses wireless means that you must trust the person who owns the
access point.

In message <f6l7sm$u9r$(E-Mail Removed)>, dido22 <(E-Mail Removed)>
writes
>Hello,
>
>A friend of mine has a small business. She shares a broadband
>connection with another small business in an adjacent room, using a
>wireless connection to a router. Thay have individual email addresses.
>
>She has been told that there is a security risk, i.e. the other
>business might be able to read confidential files from her pc.
>
>Is this true ?
>
>All help & advice very welcome
>
>Thanks
>
>K
Might is the operative word here.

If her PC is recent (XP Pro or Vista), up to date with patches, properly
(with regard to the situation and by someone who knows what they are
doing) set up and locked down with a decent firewall in place it should
be reasonably secure for normal purposes. If she has data on it that
would be subject to the Data Protection (Personal) or Financial Services
(Credit card data?) legislation, the idea of sharing a link might offer
a less than adequate defence if anything did go wrong.

If her PC is older (or XP Home), was simply connected up straight from
the box and is not secured and protected, then the answer is PROBABLY.

Both the above answers assume that the person or persons in the other
firm are not malicious with access to a competent computer support
person whose ethics would allow them to hack. If this is true, then
there is little that can be done to make that setup totally secure.

OTOH she could be getting a line from a computer support guy out to use
FUD to generate a nice little earner!! When they quote for sorting the
problem (you did get a quote didn't you?) , get a second quote from
someone else, and some references from satisfied customers.

Regards
--
Peter R Cook

On Jul 6, 12:09 pm, "dido22" <nos...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:

> A friend of mine has a small business. She shares a broadband connection
> with another small business in an adjacent room, using a wireless connection
> to a router. Thay have individual email addresses.
>
> She has been told that there is a security risk, i.e. the other business
> might be able to read confidential files from her pc.

if Microsoft File & Printer sharing is not enabled, and she doesn't
share any folders, this would not be the case.

Some hardware allows you to isolate wireless from wired LAN, or to
segregate into VLANs.

Phil

(E-Mail Removed) declared for all the world to hear...
> Hello,
>
> A friend of mine has a small business. She shares a broadband connection
> with another small business in an adjacent room, using a wireless connection
> to a router. Thay have individual email addresses.
>
> She has been told that there is a security risk, i.e. the other business
> might be able to read confidential files from her pc.
>
> Is this true ?

Yes it is. From my place of work I can connect to another business which
is using an un-secured wireless router. I can browse all of their shared
files and even re configure their router for them.

> All help & advice very welcome

If the connection has to be shared I would suggest a wireless access
point connected to the router by ethernet cable, and then set up WPA
encryption on the access point and don't share the password with next
door. Also, change the default login and password on the access point.

It's nowhere near a perfect solution and I would advise she gets her own
internet connection.
--
Regards
Jon

On 8 Jul, 11:11, Jon <s...@jonparker.plus.com> wrote:
> nos...@nospam.hotmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
>
> > Hello,
>
> > A friend of mine has a small business. She shares a broadband connection
> > with another small business in an adjacent room, using a wireless connection
> > to a router. Thay have individual email addresses.
>
> > She has been told that there is a security risk, i.e. the other business
> > might be able to read confidential files from her pc.
>
> > Is this true ?
>
> Yes it is. From my place of work I can connect to another business which
> is using an un-secured wireless router. I can browse all of their shared
> files and even re configure their router for them.
>
> > All help & advice very welcome
>
> If the connection has to be shared I would suggest a wireless access
> point connected to the router by ethernet cable, and then set up WPA
> encryption on the access point and don't share the password with next
> door. Also, change the default login and password on the access point.
>
> It's nowhere near a perfect solution and I would advise she gets her own
> internet connection.
> --
> Regards
> Jon

Perhaps you do not know that getting a Draytek 2800G for about 150
sovs and using vlan with 2 seperste subnets will avoid the costs of a
second broadband line completly ( this has the same effect as her own
internet connection but is a lot cheaper.)

Motto of the day
Behind every complicated and expensive solution is a cheap and simple
one.

HTH Phil