Transcript: Becoming hack-proof, a WiFi how-to

Hello, this is Tami Abdollah, I am a metro reporter here at the Los Angeles Times and I will be taking you through a few technical steps to help you secure your computer and surf Internet hotspots a little safer.

I’ll be working off of my own personal laptop, which is an IBM Thinkpad T43 with Windows XP on it. But the steps on your computer should be essentially the same.

This first tip will make sure your computer only searches out official access points to connect to. Not other users’ computers.

1) First thing’s first, go to the start menu at the bottom left corner of your computer screen and you should find a “connect to” option.

2) Go ahead and click on it and then click on the “Show all connections” option.

3) There you will find your Internet connections. Now right click on your wireless connection…and click on properties.

4) And a properties menu should pop up.

5) On this menu--here’s a close up. Click on the Wireless Networks tab.

6) When you click on the tab you will end up with a menu that lists your preferred networks. You want to click on the “advanced” button there on the bottom right.

7) When you get to the advanced pop up you’ll see three choices. Click on “access point (infrastructure) networks only.” This makes sure your computer does not end up connecting to another user by accident when in range.

8) After you close the pop up you should be back at the properties menu.

This next tip is for turning on your firewall.

8) At the properties menu click on the “Advanced” tab. Then click on settings.

9) Turn “on” your windows firewall, and then click OK. There you go.

Now here’s a tip on how to make sure your files and folders remain private and to limit access to your folders if you should be compromised by a hacker. It may sound juvenile, but you should avoid sharing.

10) Go back to the start menu and select “my computer.” You can also often do this directly from your desktop.

11) Once it opens up, right click on your “C” drive and click on “sharing and security.”

12) The properties menu should pop up, and you want to select the “Sharing” tab. Make sure you are not sharing the contents of the drive. In my case, I was not.

13) After you close that you’re back at the my computer menu and you should right click on your “documents” folder.

14) Click on “Sharing and Security”

15) You want to pull up the “Sharing” tab in this menu.

16) Click on “make this folder private” and then click on “Apply”…then you can click OK.

Although it may sound a little simplistic, one important way of keeping your computer secure is keeping on top of what it is doing. On that note, it’s important that you manually connect and disconnect from the wireless Internet when you’re using it and when you are done. That prevents it from automatically searching out networks without you knowing when you turn it on.

17) Back at your start menu, click on “connect to” and go to “show all connections.”

18) Right click on your wireless network connection and click “disable” to…disable it.

19) Now to enable it, you guessed it. Right click on the wireless network connection and click on “enable.”

Well, those are a few tips. I hope they were helpful. Feel free to contact me via email for any other tips.

tami.abdollah@latimes.com