How Education and Industry Fight the Emergency of Wardriving - Essay Example

In this way, the individual or individuals engaging in wardriving are potentially able to access sensitive information or cause damage to the accessed network. Added to these considerations is the recognition that few individuals are aware that wardriving is a regular practice. With these understandings in mind, education and industry must fight the emergence of this practice. Additionally, home users should be made aware.

            Because of the relative unfamiliarity with wardriving practices, many organizations take minimal preventative steps. For these reasons, war drivers can gain easy access. Subsequently, if an organization takes even low-level security measures they can prevent the occurrence of many war drivers. There are several overarching methods that education and industry can use to defend against wardriving. One of the first steps that should be taken is to ensure that the SSID is not broadcast. The first element that war drivers search for is the SSID, so but ensuring that this is not broadcast will require war drivers to go to great lengths to access the network (Anderson, 2008). Additionally, businesses or individuals must change their SSID from the factory default, as this will further limit war drivers’ access to the network.

            While changing the SSID can greatly limit the access war drivers acemetacin, in some instances, this does not go far enough in entirely restricting access. As such, it is necessary to enact further security measures. A major security measure that should be implemented is ensuring that the wireless network is password protected. In addition to ensuring the network is password protected it’s necessary to encrypt the wireless connection. For household users who generally purchase moderately priced routers, WEP encryption is usually the only option. For larger institutions or businesses, however, there is the option of implementing EAP encryption. EAP encryption is more secure than WEP encryption and should be implemented when there is sensitive information contained on the computers.

            For institutions or businesses that have sensitive information on the wireless network, there are even further steps that can be implemented to ensure war drivers are not able to access the network. One prominent strategy that has been implemented in organizations is filtering. By filtering the MAC addresses that are allowed to connect to the router, an organization can greatly limit war drivers’ access. Still, there is the potential that a war driver can sniff traffic and detect the MAC address; however, this process takes considerable time (Tsow, 2011). Another major consideration involves file configuration. If an organization configures files on a network it is necessary to ensure that these files are password protected. If two computers on a network share file without password protection, this opens a door for war drivers to gain access. While the aforementioned steps will greatly limit the potential of war drivers gaining access to the network, it is recognized that there are always technological ways to bypass security. Because of the challenges of keeping up with technology, organizations may need to consider even more extensive means of encryption, extending to the establishment of entire security departments.

            In conclusion, this essay has examined wardriving Within this context of an investigation, it’s demonstrated that wardriving isn’t only an issue for education and industry, but also a concern for households. Several preventative measures have been established. Among these prevention strategies include concealing one’s SSID and changing the settings away from the factory defaults. In all situations, it is necessary to ensure that the network, as well as file configuration processes, are password protected. Ultimately, taking these steps will greatly limit the access war drivers have to the network.