Possible Breach? (Wireless connection)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve K. Lee
  • Start date Start date
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Steve K. Lee

I have a laptop which I have it connected to my wirelessly to my
router. This evening when I tried to turn my laptop off after
finishing off some work, I got a message saying something along the
line of, "If you turn your computer off now, other users will be
disconnected", or something to that effect. I don't recall verbatim.

So, looked in my network settings and I noticed that my laptop was
connected to some other router/network other than my own. I'm
guessing that my laptop somehow dropped its original connection with
my router and it searched and found another wireless network which was
unsecured. Most probably hooked up with a router belonging to one of
my neighbours.

But what I'm most concerned with is the warning message I received
when I tried to turn off the laptop. Does that indicate that someone,
perhaps the owner of the router which my laptop searched and connected
to, was connected to my computer and was browsing through the contents
of my HD?

I'm running Windows XP Home. This has never happened to me before and
I'm very concerned. What do some of you make of this? TIA!
 
Very possible and easy to do if you did not chnge the password on the
built-in Admin Account, most people do not. There is also a setting withing
the WZC control panle to set your machine to "connect only to preferred
networks".
 
You also should be setting up a WEP or WPA security scheme on your own
wireless network. This will "lock" out other "un-authorised" users from your
network. Every wireless router / adapter all come as "opened" (no security)
acess, which means anyone can access anything on your PC and router.
 
Hi guys, thanks for the tips. However, I have already changed the
Admin account and have also set up a 128 bit, I believe, WEP security
key.

My problem was that it was my laptop that seeked out someone else's
unsecured wireless network when its wireless connection was dropped
unbeknownst to me.

And while my laptop was connected to someone else's wireless
connection and I tried to turn it off, I received a windows warning
message saying something along the line of, "If you turn your computer
off now, other users will be disconnected", or something to that
effect. I don't recall verbatim.

And what I was curious of was if that message indeed does indicate
that someone in the wireless network which my laptop connected to
after the connection with my router somehow dropped, was connected to
my laptop and was browsing the contents of it.
 
You should be able to remove all the "extra" network in wireless network
adapter. Only keep yours listed.
 
Do you have more than one account on your laptop? In other words, does more
than one person use your laptop, and have their own login account? If so, it
is possible to switch users in XP Home, and the other user may have been
logged in whilee you were logged in. If that is the case, you would have
gotten the error message you described.
 
Setting WPA will not necessarily prevent your laptop from connencting to an
'open' router.

If you don't need to share files over wireless, go into the advanced network
properties (on the network window's topmenu) and unbind the Microsoft Client
from the wireless adapter. (remove the tick) - this will greatly reduce the
risk.
 
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