Network monitors?

bothered

Hi all,
just occasionally our internet seems to slow down quite a lot. We have three PCs on a 20Mb cable through a Linksys wrt54g router, two wired, one wireless. I have set security at 128 bit WEP so assume nobody is tapping in but how do we know if there is? Is there a prog that could show me where the available bandwidth is going? Something that would list all connected PCs and show how much they were using?
Thanks. :bigggrin:

qparadox

Hey Bothered,

128 bit WEP can be cracked in less than a minute using modern software. Any kiddie with more than 15 seconds on their hands can google and download the cracking programs and be on your network a few minutes later. See securityfocus if you want details:
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1814

If you want to figure out if someone is actually doing this, you should be able to see the status of all connected clients from within the wrt54g to check all available clients and you can then see if there's someone you don't recognize.

The real solution though is to change the encryption to "WPA" instead. There should be options to do this in your wrt54g although it may need a firmware upgrade. (let me know if you can't find it)

You'll also want to make sure you pick a strong passphrase with WPA. The ideal passphrase is just random characters. You can use a generator like the one found here:

http://www.kurtm.net/wpa-pskgen/

to generate a strong passphrase. Whatever you do, don't use a word based passphrase as these can be cracked as quickly as WEP passphrases..

Hope this helps.

Derek

bothered wrote:

Hi all,
just occasionally our internet seems to slow down quite a lot. We have three PCs on a 20Mb cable through a Linksys wrt54g router, two wired, one wireless. I have set security at 128 bit WEP so assume nobody is tapping in but how do we know if there is? Is there a prog that could show me where the available bandwidth is going? Something that would list all connected PCs and show how much they were using?
Thanks. :bigggrin:

bothered

Wow, thanks for the info, I thought WEP was more secure than that. I'll have a look at WPA. I can't find an idiots guide though, I mean I can see it in the routers pages but I'm not sure how to set the other PCs up and I don't want to disconnect them until I know what I'm doing.

halo2_god

Hey, buddy also i have the same router linksys wrt54g. I know a few tricks well firstly open your internet browser then type http://192.168.1.1 then it will ask you for a password and username it is admin admin by default. Then once your on your router settings goto Wireless tab > then click on wireless mac filter > enable > permit only (he/she might use some spoofing program to get another mac address) > then on all pc's run CMD by Windows key and r then type CMD. Then type ipconfig /all then allow that mac address. For video games like the Xbox 360 just goto netowrk setting and look for mac address.

cambrose

Well, I use the same method as halo2 there (primarily to make the other people in my apartment disappointed when they see an open network but can't access it)...but I digress. Where did you get a 20mb pipe and can you run it to my house?

bothered

cambrose wrote:

Where did you get a 20mb pipe and can you run it to my house?

Cheers guys, I've tightened things up a bit. I'm not worried about anything in any of the PCs, it's people who 'may' be stealing bandwidth that was my main concern.
20Meg was a free upgrade ,from 10meg, from Virgin Media. I doubt it's ever 20 meg though.

kryyst

Get a program called look@lan it'll scan your network and show you who's using what and where. If you want more further depth get network notepad.