Your Wireless Router Hacked

I bought a Linksys WRT54G wireless router so that my brother and I could share one Internet connection in our apartment. As soon as I plugged the router in, it worked fine with my cable modem service and everything was OK for a few weeks. But we recently went on a vacation, and when we got back, neither of us could wirelessly connect to the network. We’re both getting a WEP error. I know WEP is a security thing, but I don’t remember ever setting it up. If we connect our laptops to the router with an Ethernet cable, we can access the Web, but we can’t sync up on the wireless connection anymore. What’s going on?

It sounds like you left your router setup with its default out-of-the-box configuration and someone took control of your network and enabled WEP while you were away. You may be a victim of a wardriver. Wardrivers / wardriving is a term used to describe people who drive around looking for unprotected wireless networks. In your email you mention you live in an apartment, so it’s possible someone in your building found your network by searching for an available network connection. If you left your router in its default configuration while you were on vacation, the wardriver could then log into your router, enable WEP, and keep your wireless connection all to himself. We know this sounds a little nuts, but it happens all the time. However, it’s not always malicious because some folks will do this to inform less savvy users that their networks are unprotected and they need to secure them.

What you should do is connect to your router via an Ethernet cable and then reset your router to its factory configuration by holding down the reset button on the back of the unit for a few seconds and cycling the power. Then, once the router is reset, immediately log into it, change your SSID and your router login password, and enable a stronger form of wireless protection, preferably WPA or WPA2 (if it’s available). If you’re unsure how to log into your router, there should be instructions in its installation manual. Log-ging in to your router is usually fairly easy: All you have to do is enter the router’s internal IP address into your Web browser (it’s probably 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1) and then enter the default username and password. For that router, leave the username blank and use the password “admin” to log in. While you’re at it, we’d also recommend updating your router with the latest firmware, which should be available on Linksys’ Web site.

For more, read the 10-Minutes Guide to Wireless Security

My recommendation is to get a router with firewall capabilities.