When browsing the web you are exposed to many vulnerabilities.  By virtue, the operating system you use is enough to expose personal information to any relatively technical individual.  Whether you are at your desk or in the comfort of your home, the information you transmit to and from the Internet is, by default, not secure.  Out of the box, the wireless router you install at home in minutes does not have security enabled.  Manufacturers feel as though adding default security creates a level of complexity that the average user doesn’t want to be bothered with.  Many individuals feel as though they don’t care about who’s watching until they make that first credit card purchase.

Many open source applications such as Wireshark were designed to be a network tool but have the ability to be much more.  A graphical interface with information sorting and filtering options allows packets to be captured whether wired or wireless.   Consequently making the information you transmit/receive available for others to view.

WiFi can be transmitted and/or received by so many different devices that the amount and type of data passing by us is remarkable.  From cell phones and gaming systems to desktop and laptop computers, packets of data are passing through the air at unimaginable rates.

When you go to the local computer superstore and purchase an access point or wireless router you’re often given misleading advice that give you a false sense of security.  Many of the commonly recommended wireless security tips aren’t actually all that useful and may even do more harm than good by giving you that false sense of security.

Too often, we catch a story about an individual being accused of possession of, or downloading, illegal material.  By having a wireless network unsecured or improperly secured, you become an open portal for the transmission of such material.  On top of that your network is leading the trail for authorities directly to you!

Why? How?

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns an IP address to you via the router they provided.  The destination or source IP address for the illegal material is simply captured as part of the packets being transmitted.  The authorities trace the IP address to the ISP who then traces the IP address to the one assigned to you.  By not having your network secure, you hold a level of responsibility for the type of data being transmitted to and from your router whether having the knowledge of it or not.  Hypothetically, someone can connect to your network without your knowledge and either download or transmit illegal material.  You’re thinking — The police will just see that I didn’t do it.  Very true, but only after your neighbors saw the police at your home/office seizing your PC and your name was published in the newspaper.  Did I mention a costly defense?

What can I do to secure my wireless network?

Don’t broadcast your SSID

The SSID (Service Set Identifier) is an identification that is broadcasted by a wireless router. Basically, it’s the router saying “I’m out here, this is my name, connect to me.”  Telling a router not to broadcast its SSID may prevent basic wireless access software from displaying the network as a connection option, but it does nothing to actually secure the network. Any time a user connects to a router, the SSID is broadcast in plaintext with that packets sent and received, regardless of whether or not encryption is enabled. SSID information can also be picked up by anyone listening to the network in passive mode.

Disable DHCP

DHCP or Dynamical Host Control Protocol is when an IP address is automatically assigned to your device.  Static IP addressing is when you manually assign an IP address to your device and giving you the ability to change your subnet.  Switching DHCP off and using static IP addressing is no defense against a potential hacker. Anyone sniffing the network can usually figure out the IP scheme that has been used to assign the IP addresses with the subnet range.

Filter MAC addresses

Each NIC card has a unique MAC address.  Theoretically, this sounds great as a wireless access points can be configured to accept or block specified MAC addresses. The problem with filtering by MAC address is that these addresses are easily detected by anyone using appropriate monitoring software like Wireshark.

Filtering MAC addresses is the only one with even a minimal level of value. MAC address filtering can keep a beginner hacker or neighbors from easily connecting and accessing your wireless network, but it won’t do much else. To keep more sophisticated intruders off of your network, you’ll have to use encryption in addition to MAC address filtering

Use Encryption

Even the routers you can purchase locally are capable of using encryption.  What ever encryption you use, your key phrase should consist of as many characters, symbols, and numbers as possible.  WPA is a good encryption method, followed by WPA2, WPA, WPA, and WEP. Generally, any router that supports WPA is good in terms of its overall security. WEP is an “only if you must” protocol, but it’s still a better option than transmitting without encryption.

What does this have to do with computer forensics?

New Jersey Legal posses the expertise to evaluate your network, whether wired or wireless and work with you to firmly secure it.  Often times, a company solicits themselves as having forensic experts on staff.   Without having extensive networking knowledge, the forensic expert will overlook data that may be vital to your case.  Don’t allow the smoking gun be left undiscovered!

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As you may recall, last time we introduced you to some real “characters” and how they prefer to wipe their data, or at least attempt to physically destroy it. After witnessing the various data destruction methods, we wanted to follow up with our own recommendations for destroying or wiping data. While the methods caught on tape might appear to be more fun, these methods of physical destruction may not be the most practical, especially if you would like to reuse the hard drive.

We recommend using disk-cleaning utilities. There are many software programs from which to choose, and many of these packages use a handful of different methods. Some of these packages allow a user to “wipe” only the free space on a hard drive while other programs wipe all data on your hard drive. Depending on the needs, a user may desire one method over another.

Wiping Deleted Files
Once a file is deleted it is not accessible from within the Windows operating system, but can be recovered by using forensic data recovery tools. This is easily accomplished because the Windows OS doesn’t actually remove the deleted files, but instead simply changes a small portion of the file which tells the operating system that the space this file currently occupies is free to be overwritten and used by other files if the space is needed. If a user wants to remove these files permanently, they can select a program that wipes their deleted files. The software accomplishes this by overwriting the deleted files with volumes of random data which renders the “deleted files” unrecoverable.

Wiping All Data
These programs work by overwriting your entire hard drive with a series of 1s, 0s or random data depending on which program and which method is used. Most of the methods used rely on overwriting data with a series of characters and then erasing these characters. Some of these methods even repeat this 3, 7 or even 35 times. These methods may be commonly referred to as DoD3 wipe, DoD7 Wipe and Gutmann 35 wipe respectively.

The positives to using a DOD or Gutmann wipe are many. First, one can reuse this drive and not discard it, which means you will be acting more environmentally friendly by keeping the hard drive out of a landfill. Second, the user saves money by not having to buy a replacement hard drive. A third benefit is eliminating the need for expensive hardware as these methods use software instead, some of which is free. The fourth benefit is software wiping is also relatively fast and doesn’t require driving out into the country to shoot holes through your data. Lastly, in this economy, most people aren’t too eager to spend the money to rent a jackhammer or log splitter!

Another method of wiping data is called “degaussing.” Some of you may be familiar with the term degaussing because of the degaussing option on older CRT computer monitors. Degaussing deals with changing the magnetic structure of something and when you would degauss a CRT computer monitor, the screen would shake and provide hours of entertainment for the bored, young or slightly inebriated.

Degaussing is successful for wiping hard drives because data is stored to hard drives by making small areas change their magnetic alignment. When degaussed, it leaves these small areas, and therefore your data, in random patterns. When degaussed properly there won’t be enough information left to reconstruct the original data. Degaussing is normally done by using a machine built specifically for this purpose and can be completed within a very short period of time.

The primary downside to degaussing your hard drives is it can be just as wasteful as the physical destruction methods. Once you degauss a hard drive it will be rendered unusable because the changes to this magnetic media leave the storage system damaged and the drive unusable. So, while degaussing is efficient and gets the job done, it’s not the most environmentally or economically friendly method of wiping your data. The cost of these degaussing machines is not only well out of the average computer users budget, but also more than most companies would ever consider spending. Plus, you still have to buy another hard drive to get back up an running.

We hope you find this post helpful. Thank you in advance for thinking a little more “green” and we hope you are able to benefit from our money saving ideas when deleting data. We appreciate you joining us! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them in comments section of our blog at njlcblog.net!

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