Gartner Web Development, LLC

The default ‘out-of-the-box’ settings for most wireless routers/gateways do not adequately secure your internal network or the data transmitted and received by devices such as laptops. A process called WEP is typically used to ’secure’ these devices but can be broken into using free software downloaded from the internet. Most wireless switches that are less than 2 years old offer much better methods of securing this part of your network but do not enable them by default and must be manually configured. Many older products also offer better security than WEP but, like the newer ones, they too must be manually configured. Have a look at the manufacturers instructions for securing your wireless connection. Gartner Web Development recommends using WPA-PSK or WPA Personal with TKIP - look for them on the wireless configuration page. Don’t forget to change the default administrator password too as this information can be readily found on the Internet as well.

We’ve all gotten them. You know the email that says something like MAILER-DAEMON failure notice. Although many of these notices are legitimate, some are more insidious. A common tactic used to spread viruses and worms today is to forge these failure notices and then send them out to people with a blurb stating that details are contained within an attachment. Since most of the email that we send out is important, we want to know who didn’t get our message.