Is Wireless Network Security Your Organization’s Weakness?

This is going to start out with a nerdy tangent, but I was watching the classic Star Wars films with the family a few weeks ago. There is a scene in Star Wars: A New Hope where our heroes slip aboard the Death Star, and R2-D2 plunks his little robotic USB cable into a computer and gains seemingly untethered access to the entire battle station.

I was briefly taken out of the fantasy of the moment because my IT brain started firing at full speed, and I thought “Ew. Imagine how insecure the Death Star’s network must be!”

Most Movies Use IT Security as a Minor Roadblock

Fortunately, it’s just a movie about laser swords and cool muppet aliens, but it does give us something to think about. Star Wars was planned and shot back in the late 70s, long before we really anticipated just how wired… or wireless… the future was going to be. If R2-D2 had a Wi-Fi antenna, and the Death Star had a Wi-Fi network (even a password-protected one), it likely wouldn’t take the little astromech droid very long to have full access to the keys to the castle the moment he rolled his little tripod legs off the Millenium Falcon.

Sure, it’s silly to think about, and it would have resulted in fewer dramatic moments in the film, but this can apply to virtually any network in any organization: 

If you aren’t securing everything, you are wide open.

Modern Networks Need Modern Wireless Security

Okay, I promise we’ll spend the rest of this post in our galaxy.

Let’s take a look at a real-world scenario.

Let’s assume that your business has a wireless network. Your employees can access the company network from laptops from anywhere in and around the office. They can use their tablets or smartphones, and they aren’t necessarily tethered to their desk.

The problem with a wireless network is that you can’t perfectly dictate who connects to it. It’s not like an ethernet port in the wall—anyone within range of your access point can see it and attempt to connect. If you aren’t taking steps to strictly control access levels, and you aren’t generally blocking everyone from everything unless they specifically need it, then you are leaving everything wide open for anyone to access.

What About Password-Protecting My Wi-Fi?

That’s a pretty good starting point, but not all password-protected wireless networks are actually secure. Password-protecting your home Wi-Fi is a good way to keep your downstairs neighbor from using it to watch Netflix, but it isn’t as secure as you might think. 

Think of password-protected Wi-Fi like a cheap bicycle lock. It’s mostly there to uphold the honor system; it’s not infallible. There are countless guides and tutorials online to teach would-be hackers how to crack through low-security wireless networks, and it can often be done by common everyday computing devices in just a matter of hours. If your network was really implemented poorly, it could be done within minutes.

Why are Wireless Networks So Easy to Crack?

It comes down to a few reasons.

First of all, most people don’t consider their networking equipment to be anything more than a little device with antennas that puts the Internet in the air. Even a cheap network router is a fairly complex computer with its own firmware, operating system, settings, and built-in security. Like any device, outdated software can lead to vulnerabilities, but most of these devices are designed to be easy to get into and manage right out of the box.

Most routers and access points come preinstalled with a default factory username and password. This is different from the actual password to log into the wireless network. It’s as easy as doing a Google search for the make and possibly the model of the device and you can easily find the default login information. It has to be that easy, because consumers need to be able to get into their routers to configure them. These factory settings are so common across so many devices that there is a pretty good chance if you attempt the password “admin” you’ll be let in.

If your router wasn’t properly configured and the default credentials weren’t changed, nothing is stopping someone else from getting full access to everything.

It’s also likely that the password you set for your wireless network (what you call the Wi-Fi password), isn’t all that secure. Most people use entirely weak passwords for their Wi-Fi network in order to make it easy to share with those who need access. This is fine for guest Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or hotel, where your guest Wi-Fi is a totally separate network than the rest of the network, but if your business isn’t set up like that, you are making it pretty easy for someone to guess their way in.

That leads us to another point; separating your guest Wi-Fi from the rest of your network. This is huge. If your business allows visitors of any type to connect to the network, whether you have a lobby, waiting room, or conference room, you’ll want a designated guest Wi-Fi network that can’t touch the rest of your network. This will allow guests to get access to the Internet without being mixed in with the traffic that deals with financial and other sensitive information.

Datalyst Can Secure Your Wireless Network, While Improving Its Performance

If you feel like your wireless network is slow or unstable, it’s pretty likely that there are other potential issues going on behind the scenes too. Datalyst can help you evaluate your wireless network, as well as the rest of your IT infrastructure. 

We can actively monitor and maintain every piece of mission-critical hardware and software across your network to ensure that your business operates smoothly. It doesn’t hurt to get a second pair of eyes on things. Give us a call at (774) 213-9701 to get started.