Password Protect Your Wireless Router!

Easy instructions for password protecting your wireless router: http://www.ehow.com/how_5043404_password-protect-wireless-router.html

Wireless router hijacked for child pornography

Sarasota attorney Malcolm Riddell details the dangers of not having a password for your router. The use of the router in his condo was stolen by a boat captain in Sarasota Bay to download 10 million files of child pornography.

By Todd Ruger

SARASOTA - Malcolm Riddell awoke at 6 a.m. one day last year to some of the most heart-sinking words a homeowner can hear: "FBI, open up."

WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR ROUTER

There are simple steps to take to help protect your home wireless network:
Change default pass- words and usernames
Wireless routers come with default passwords and usernames that are well-known to hackers, who can get access if you do not change them upon installation.
Change the default SSID
Routers have a network name, called the SSID, which is usually a default from the manufacturers. A default SSID can be a sign of a poorly configured network and invite hackers to attack it.
Position the router or access point safely
Try to position wireless routers near the center of the home rather than near windows to minimize leakage outside and to other homes.
SOURCE: About.com

When he did, a dozen armed FBI agents swarmed through the lawyer's lofty Palm Avenue condo in downtown Sarasota. They held him against the wall, separated him from his wife and then questioned him on the porch looking down 12 stories onto Sarasota Bay.

Riddell says he was not nervous or scared, just clueless. The FBI agents searched through his computer equipment for a while, then made it all clear: child pornography images were flowing through Riddell's wireless Internet connection.

Riddell's wireless router put him in the middle of a child pornography investigation that would eventually lead to a man who admitted possessing and sending 10 million illegal files from a boat in the Sarasota marina below Riddell's windows.

"How in the world could that be?" Riddell said. "We started discussing the possibilities."

The agents cleared Riddell that June morning of any suspicion. But for a short time, Riddell faced accusations of a felony crime that can lead to decades behind bars and a lifetime designation as a sex offender.

As the FBI searched his home, Riddell learned first-hand the dangers of leaving a home wireless router unprotected without a password, and open for others to jump on and use his Internet service.

Riddell, 58, considers himself tech-savvy, and he knew better than to leave the router unprotected, since all the online activity of strangers appears to be coming from his account.

A router is a device that allows for a wireless connection to the Internet. If not secured with a password, that connection can be used by anyone with a computer within range of the router's signal.

But on the 12th floor, in a building where the average resident is of retirement age, Riddell said he ignored the risks when he set it up.

"You're thinking, what's the point? I thought it was only 400 feet was the range," said Riddell, a Harvard University business school graduate whose fluency in Mandarin helped him forge business relationships in Asia.

But the dangers became clear when the FBI convinced Riddell to let them put a tracer on his router to see if they could catch the person using the screen names "Hardalone243," "Hardpedo" and "Hard_foryou68."

"At that point there were six people on my router," Riddell said. "We didn't know which one was the guy."

The FBI had been tracking "Hardalone243" since September 2009, but needed help identifying him, according to a special agent's affidavit filed in federal court.

Agents say they eventually tracked the images back to Mark Brown, 52, who was arrested Sept. 30 on a boat, "Aloan at Last."

Brown worked as the captain of the yacht, moored in the Sarasota Marina within view of Riddell's building. FBI agents say Brown used several unsecured, non-password protected wireless networks near the boat.

In interviews after his arrest, Brown told investigators he had more than 10 million files of child pornography photos and videos on his computer. Brown remains in custody while awaiting trial on a federal child pornography charge that could result in decades in prison if convicted.

Justin McClellan, a technician for We Fix Computers in Sarasota, said awareness of the need for security on wireless routers is growing. The technicians there see fewer unsecured routers during their calls for service.

Many Internet service providers will set up protections on the routers when they install them, and the routers from the store have better security built in, McClellan said.

And securing a wireless router with a password is also as simple as following step-by-step programs that come with those routers.

"The biggest security risk on routers if someone were to buy their own is they all come with a default username and password, and those are really well known," McClellan said.

Riddell came to a conclusion after the early-morning raid on his condo. "I'm going to encrypt this thing immediately," he said.

Password Protect Your Wireless Router or Risk Child Porn Charges - Miami News - Riptide 2.0