We tend to believe that our so-called “secure” WiFi networks, like the one you probably use at home, are totally safe. We only need to worry about public WiFi networks, right?
But there are real dangers to your home WiFi networks, like the threat of wardrivers. Wardrivers use hardware and software to find WiFi signals in a particular area in order to find vulnerable networks with weak passwords. Once in, the attacker has total access to your sensitive information and can see everything you do online.
A recent article found that nearly 70% of home WiFi network passwords were vulnerable to wardrivers.
Sounds scary, huh? Although war driving is a real security threat, it doesn’t have to be a hazard to your home wireless network if you take steps to protect yourself.
What Exactly is Wardriving?
Wardriving is the process of physically searching for wireless networks with vulnerabilities from a moving vehicle and mapping the wireless access points. The person or persons doing the wardriving usually concentrate on WiFi signals within a particular area.
Once they locate specific networks, wardrivers will record the location of vulnerable networks and then submit this to third-party websites and apps to create digital maps.
The main reasons why wardrivers look for vulnerable WiFi networks is to steal your financial information, which includes your credit card numbers and your banking information. Another reason is to use your network for criminal activity. Sometimes, wardrivers are used by ethical hackers who want to improve network security.
Wardriving can easily be done with an app on a smartphone. However, larger attacks can sometimes use intricate wardriving software, a GPS to find locations of wireless networks, and a computer or smartphone that has access to a wireless network.
Surprisingly, Wardriving is Not Illegal
While it may seem that doing something like accessing secure wireless networks would be illegal, there are no laws that specifically prohibit or allow wardriving, though many localities have laws forbidding unauthorized access of computer networks and protecting personal privacy.
Wardriving is less common today than it was 20 years ago, but the problem persists. Although ethical hackers are out there, we need to be more concerned with those trying to exploit weaknesses in our home WiFi networks to extract data or perform illegal activities.
How to Protect Yourself from Wardrivers
There are some common sense things we can do right now to our home WiFi networks to make sure we are not at risk of wardrivers.
- Update your router’s password: Our network is only as secure as our password, so make sure you change it regularly and use multi-factor authentication when available.
- Enable network encryption: Be sure to use the highest network security protocol available (WEP, WPA, and WPA2). Also, make sure your network is not open to anyone within range.
- Use a network firewall: Firewalls block certain kinds of unapproved communication and stop most attempts to access your network.
- Make sure your system has the latest updates: Always install software updates immediately, including patches and security on your hardware and software.
- Use a VPN: Most importantly, make sure you are using a VPN
The best way to protect your home WiFi network from wardrivers is to use a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, which encrypts the data moving to and from all your devices that are connected to your home networks. The encryption protects all your Internet communication from being intercepted by others, even if they’ve cracked your router password and gained access to your networks.