Network taken over?

[Kamikaze_Badger]

I live in a house with two other college students. We have cable internet running on a Linksys WRT54G. One of my roommates set up the wifi with an easily guessed/socially engineered password. A month ago he mentioned that someone had disabled the security on the wifi, and asked if I knew anything about it. I hadn't done anything, he told me that he set the wireless network to Hidden. The name of the network? The password that was easily breeched.

 

All of a sudden, the network is no longer hidden and the name has changed to Network 5. Furthermore, my speed has dropped from 25 Mbps to 0.5 Mbps randomly during the day. What's really got me concerned is the fact that I can't access 192.168.1.1 like I used to. Firefox gives me a "connection was reset" error page, and IE gives me a generic "Page can not be displayed." This is the IP I used before to check in on the router (oh yeah, he never changed the admin password).

 

Does anyone have any idea what's going on?

[Stonerboy779]

Can you access the router?

 

If so hit the pin hole reset go into the settings with default user and pass and set up some proper security.

[Waco]

Just reset the router manually...

[d6bmg]

Reset the router and set up the whole network once gain with better security.

[Nerm]

Reset the router and set up the whole network once gain with better security.

[bigball1]

After you reset it. Get the MAC address of the PC/phones who are using this unit. Put them in the "only these computers can connect to this" part. Cant remember what its called. But someone else will say.

Then you can have no password on your wifi and no one can connect to it, just your PCs/phones.

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Thanks. I'm the master of overreacting to things. That fixed it.

[Waco]

After you reset it. Get the MAC address of the PC/phones who are using this unit. Put them in the "only these computers can connect to this" part. Cant remember what its called. But someone else will say.

Then you can have no password on your wifi and no one can connect to it, just your PCs/phones.

MAC spoofing is incredibly easy. Relying on it alone is a terrible idea...

[Renigade]

best thing to to is create a 16 digit password with Upper and lower case letters, numbers thats a-z= 26 A-Z=26 0-9=10 and add 2 Symbols or characters= 64 so even they try to regain access/control with a brute force attack it will take a while... Open your calculator and do 64X64 and hit = sign 14 more times and that's the number off attempts it could possibly take them to Brute force it, and that # is after they realize that you didn't use dictionary words. because most people that use common dictionary words for passwords often use them again even after having been exploited. Just use a piece of painters tape and place it on the bottom of the router with the password or place it in a safe or where ever...

 

 

EDIT: and you want to take that a step further use 4 or 5 different language letter characters if possible LOL

Edited January 4, 2013 by Renigade

[Waco]

WPA2 and a good password you can remember is all that you really need.

[Braegnok]

 

After you reset it. Get the MAC address of the PC/phones who are using this unit. Put them in the "only these computers can connect to this" part. Cant remember what its called. But someone else will say.

Then you can have no password on your wifi and no one can connect to it, just your PCs/phones.

MAC spoofing is incredibly easy. Relying on it alone is a terrible idea...

 

+1 on both Waco's suggestions, MAC Cloning is simple way around having no password, and WPA2 and a good password is all you need.

[NCC10281982B]

 

Reset the router and set up the whole network once gain with better security.