Is wireless side of router a backdoor?

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courtney01

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I'm using a router primarily to share the internet with several desktops. I rarely use the wireless part, but I leave that on just in case I need to use a laptop. I know that wired connection is generally more secure than using wireless connection. But if I leave the router to broadcast wireless connection while using my desktop, is it possible for someone to use that as an entrance to gain access to the wired connection and spy on it? Or are the wireless and wired connections independent of each other? I already restrict MAC addresses and encrypt the wireless connection, but I know that's not fool proof, so I'm assuming the worst case scenario.
 
As long as you keep WPA2 password on the wireless, you'll be reasonable secured from all but the most determined/experienced attacker.
 
Danny Bui said:
As long as you keep WPA2 password on the wireless, you'll be reasonable secured from all but the most determined/experienced attacker.
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So theoretically it is possible for a very good hacker to use wireless to sniff wired? And in that case, if I turn off wireless broadcast when not in use, am I significantly reducing my risks?
 
courtney01 said:
So theoretically it is possible for a very good hacker to use wireless to sniff wired? And in that case, if I turn off wireless broadcast when not in use, am I significantly reducing my risks?
Click to expand...

it's trivial depending on the router type. If its a WRT you can easily update it with something that can sniff your wired and wireless transmissions. If you disable wireless you are removing a very large attack vector. If you just disable ssid broadcast, you're really not hiding anything if there's any wireless traffic on the network. However, if there isn't wireless network traffic, it will be nearly impossible to detect.
 
notnyt said:
it's trivial depending on the router type. If its a WRT you can easily update it with something that can sniff your wired and wireless transmissions. If you disable wireless you are removing a very large attack vector. If you just disable ssid broadcast, you're really not hiding anything if there's any wireless traffic on the network. However, if there isn't wireless network traffic, it will be nearly impossible to detect.
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What's a WRT? I'm using a standard D-Link router for home use. How is it possible for someone to update the router with such a sniffer, and what can I do to prevent or at least notice someone has tried to do that?
 
courtney01 said:
What's a WRT? I'm using a standard D-Link router for home use. How is it possible for someone to update the router with such a sniffer, and what can I do to prevent or at least notice someone has tried to do that?
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with linksys wrt and similar routers, you can replace the firmware with something like openwrt, which is a basic linux distro setup for firewall/routing. You'd notice since your router wouldn't be running the same software when you connect to it =]
 
notnyt said:
with linksys wrt and similar routers, you can replace the firmware with something like openwrt, which is a basic linux distro setup for firewall/routing. You'd notice since your router wouldn't be running the same software when you connect to it =]
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When I access my router through my browser, are all those customization options the firmware you're referring to? So when I bought the router, I'm using the default firmware, and the openwrt you're suggesting is another firmware?

In order to check if someone's tampered with my router, I would need to periodically connect to it to see if it looks different? This seems really tedious, so is there a way to block such actions?
 
Nobody is hacking your WPA2 encrypted and MAC secured router through the wireless connection.

They're coming in through the WAN IP with a backdoor planted by a trojan.

And the CIA is onto you also.
 
I don't mind going into my router from time to time to see the clients list and make sure that nobody else has been connecting to it, but for the most part I trust that the password I have set it up with is doing enough of a good job. There's not THAT many people out there trying to use your internet.
 
Just use WPA or higher...have updated firmware on your router, change admin password on your router, and relax, enjoy it, sleep at night.

WEP can be hacked with many tools avail out there, but to be honest..it takes a dedicated person with knowledge to break into it.

WPA, in its basic PSK form, "can be" partially hacked..but it takes quite an effort. Esp if you use TKIP. Do yourself a favor...go lookup.."and read" some of those articles on cracking WPA. Now envision your neighbors trying that.

MAC filtering is actually one of the easier ones to crack, it's not even worth your time.

Hiding your SSID....that only keeps the innocent grandma next door from latching onto your wireless network by accident..if you're running without WEP/WPA/WPA2/MAC filtering. That's all it does. Any kid that's going to try to sniff his neighbors wireless networks to cause trouble will be using tools which find it anyways. So really, hiding your SSID is useless.
 
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