Wireless networks are a cyber thief’s best friend. Once you start shifting data around in the ether, then the chances of it being intercepted and pinched are inherently greater.

But the irony is of course. that networks are a must for modern day living. Without them it would all grind to a halt, so not using them is not the solution.

Networks allows you to link up all your computers and many of your peripherals. And it allows you to carry say a laptop around your house without trailing wires and sockets.

In short, there’s no going back, but you have to be on your guard against thieves.

Wi-Fi is the technology that drives modern day networks. It started with the inglorious named 802.11ba and then moved onto the faster 802.11g.

So lets have a look at some of the main dangers you’ll face when setting up a home network.

If a cyber thief penetrates your network, they can discover all the private information being stored on computers within the network. They can delete, edit and read files, and syphon off what they regard as useful.

Also, having a number of computers on a network means that one can be singled out for special attention. This might include planting a bot on your machine, which means that it is turned into an appropriately named zombie. Effectively, it means that it is out of your control and in the hands of the hacker, who might then plant a trojan – say a spambot – which happily sits on your machine and uses it to send spam emails to your address book.

There are thousands of zombies out there and explains why spam emails are so efficiently sent. The cybercriminals are effectively parasites which use other peoples machines and email address books to do the work for them.

And what’s worse, as your machine joins others as just one zombie within a zombie botnet, you might be unaware of all the emails being sent out in your name. You might only find out when your machine is traced as the culprit and you get some terse emails coming back.

This writer had such an experience recently. A man with whom I had emailed a few months earlier about a simple commercial transaction, was suddenly emailing me saying he was hold up in a South African hotel room, having had his money and papers stolen, and was in desperate need of $3,000 to help him get back to the U.K. I was to email back immediately and make arrangements for a money transfer.

Now, even when I’m writing articles every day about viruses and the attempts of nefarious individuals to send such emails in order to trick people out of their money, it still causes a momentary stop and think. It’s human nature. Your hear about a person in trouble and your first human thought is, can I do something to help.

But, in order for the con to work, there has to be an element of truth. And this is where a good dose of cynicism comes in handy. The name on the email was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place the individual. Then there was that sense of urgency that all spammers use: act immediately, otherwise all will be lost. So here’s this man, who I don’t know and can barely place, asking me to save him because he’s had his money nicked in a far-off land. Of all the people he would turn to, I would come way down at the bottom of the list. And, fortunately, spammers can’t quite help but gild the Lilly. I don’t know many people who might get in such an exotic pickle; it all sounds rather adventurous. If they said it had happened down the local bed and breakfast, it might sound just a bit more plausible to me.

So, the email got deleted and just for good measure (although my incoming anti-virus software would hopefully have picked up any nasties and there were no attachments), I ran a complete system scan as well. All appears okay.

Then, low and behold, an email comes into my email box a few days later from a rather red-faced man, saying that he had been of course the victim of a spam spewing virus, that he wasn’t in a hotel bedroom with no money, and it was an awful thing to have happened to him, but thanks to all those that connected him to find out. So, that was that – but I still also deleted that email and ran another scan. Paranoid, yes?

But here’s the point – obviously a few of this man’s family and friends had obviously become alarmed by the email and had taken steps to contact him. Now, hopefully, they would not have replied to his original spam email, but used the phone instead. But had they replied to that original email, then they too could have been infected, or worse, taken for a ride. I could on this occasion be quite relaxed, but had it actually came from a person that was family, or a good friend, I would have behaved differently. It was a good lesson though.

The man had obviously been the victim of a clever spambot on his computer, which had drafted a couple of paragraphs describing his predicament and which had then been sent to all the people in his address book, me included. Quite ingenious when you think about it.

But, back to those networks. Not only can an intruder place a spambot on a machine within the network, an intruder can also nick your bandwidth.

Imagine someone inviting themselves into your house to use your heating to keep warm. It’s the same with your network. An intruder can literally tap into your network and then start to use it to download loads of data, saving themselves the expense and leaving you to explain to your internet service provider (ISP) why you might be downloading gigabits of material all of a sudden.

This hijacking of a network used to be an almost altruistic way of helping those who could not afford a provider. In Californian for example it was commonplace for people to go to known hotspots with their laptops and ‘borrow’ some bandwidth from well known companies who operated an all-comers welcome policy.

The argument was that a company might overlook others who could benefit from some spare bandwidth; which they weren’t going to miss anyway. So, it was not unduly strange to have people sat in their cars outside offices with their laptops open. This didn’t last too long, because as is usually the case with such things, certain individuals took advantage with predictable results. Bandwidth was abused, the company’s files were hacked and their systems invested with viruses. Now a company which does not have at least basic protection against bandwidth surfing will be opening themselves up to all manner of problems.

But back to basic home networks. Anyone who has used a laptop with Wi-Fi will understand quite quickly that just turning it on in a built-up area will display a number of hotspots. And its not unheard of for residents in a block of flats, or terrace houses, to use networks other than their own.

A television company recently made a programme about how easy it is to drive down a suburban road, and spot unprotected networks. The expert could then sit outside and spend some time using the person’s bandwidth, as well as accessing the person’s computer, looking at files and seeing what internet sites they were surfing. In other words, networks can make you very naked indeed.

And this applies to using hot spots in hotels, or cafes. Always be aware of how exposed your laptop is when you opt to log-in to another hotspot.

So, there is an inherent danger to networks, but what can you do to protect yourself? There are a number of things you can do, many which now thankfully are mandatory on the routers supplied by the major ISPs. But it’s always worth understanding the basics and checking whether you have things in place to offer you protection.

Wireless Network Dangers – Recap

• it’s all down to Wi-Fi, or 802.11g;
• networks vulnerable to bots;
• don’t become a zombie;
• avoid network hijackers.