Things To Remember Before Connecting In Wi-Fi

How To Protect Yourself

 

The ugly fact is that someone with enough skills and determination can hack into any network, and all but the most secure, private connections can be hacked by someone of average skill and enough determination. Consequently, the most important thing you can do to use Wi-Fi hot-spots wisely is to lock down your data and system.

                            We urge you not to surf without a firewall.If you do not have firewall software installed, turn on Windows’ built-in firewall protection.Because many users have third-party firewall software, we won’t detail these instructions here. You can locate available firewall programs by browsing to windows.microsoft.com and searching under Firewall (your version of Windows).

The next step is to secure your data. Windows Vista/7 give you the option of selecting a network profile (Home, Work, or Public) when you connect. Always select Public unless you trust the network and its members.Doing this prevents other computers on the network from discovering your PC and urns off the File And Printer Sharing feature.You can tweak any of these settings in the Network And Sharing Center: right-click the network icon (a monitor or series of bars, potentially with a red X or starburst on top) at the bottom right of your display. Select Network And Sharing Center in Vista; Open Network And Sharing Center in Win7.

 In WinXP, File And Printer Sharing is turned off by default unless you enable it. To see if it is enabled, right-click the network (monitor) icon at the bottom right of your display and select Open Network Connections. Right-click the icon for your wireless device and click Properties. Under the General tab, deselect the File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks checkbox to turn sharing off globally. When you return to a safe environment, you can re-enable this feature when necessary. In Vista/Win 7, you can also turn off the File And Printer Sharing feature manually through the network connection properties in Vista/Win7, but it’s easier to let Windows do it for you.