Have I been hacked?

[bint]

hi all.
anyone else been hacked?
i had a karoo tech on my comp going thro my net setting he found 2 comps and 3 iphones on my wireless  the worst part is we know the people - a take away shop  

 i have been told i can prove they were connected  to wireless but unable to prove they caused it.

 they kindly ran my bill upto 250. instead of my usual 90.
i did have it all passworded


am i right in thinking they are ment to offer a secure router?
i didnt recive warning mails either that im told karoo send if u go over ??

i have herd there is also a hack out  for all tompson routers  bearing that and the fact ive had this done to me ill be changing my pass fortnightly,

as helpful as the tech was he told me karoo do not cover the costs of hackers  
and it wasn a karoo fault that caused it

in  early  jan i recived a email off karoo saying they we having problems resetting the monthly amount??
with that inmind i wonder if that can also account to the total 127 that we d gone over?  ???during  the month of dec 28 to jan 28
also over this month even with them finding people using my net  they offered no help with the fact that it had made me gone over nor allow help with the bill- weekly instalments  im finding it hard to find the extra 159 in 2 weeks. i have to find it all or  get discontcted on both phone and net   then  have reconnection charges  

does anyone have any suggestions as to how i can get this sorted ??
there must be some way i can get the money the hackers cost me bk??

 i have never gone over before

<moved by Dylan>

[dylan]

Can I ask what security you are using to protect your wireless connection? Is it WEP or WPA? As I understand it WEP is trivial to crack and so can be compromised easily. Also, what type of wireless access point are you using and did you change the security key on it when you got it?

[grabo1530]

As dylan says WEP is as good as nothing to someone who really wants to crack it , can be done very easily,

[bint]

not sure which yes i change it few times but now will be done more reg

[Scotty]

I think its utter wrong that because there is no proof that your router has been cracked into, they're charging you the full amount.
They should at least look at your previous usage over the past few months, and then compare it with your recent month, and see its unrealistic.
I have to say, this is disappointing from Karoo, and you don't deserve it.

[Hobbisbang]

firstly have you checked your computer for spyware or malware. Just to make sure it was not your own computer dialling in and out.

If not then you need to report it to the police and get a crime number (they wont do anything but you get a crime number)
Then write to KC advising them of the issues and costs plus the crime number.

KC then have to take a view on it ie your billing and situation if they don’t, make a news story out of it im sure we can help as on here there are a lot of professional people with contacts

[dylan]

I agree with hobbisbang. Get in touch with the Hull Daily Mail. I'm sure they'd be interested!

[tim-hessle]

just had the same thing happen to my account ,used over 50 g in less than 2 weeks and recieved the email off karoo telling me i was at 80% useage at the same time as the mail saying i'd gone over , rang em played up merry hell that i wasnt informed in time , they wiped the usage as a good will gesture , i asked for a printout of all my usage so i could look into it further , and they claim to have lost all records of any usage and it cant be retreived !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! karoo are very good at making cock ups then making it look like they've done you a fav by semi sorting it out ... am now looking into using 1 of the wifi suppliers so i can tell karoo where to stick their bb and land line

[Hígh Treason]

This is terrible, Hobbisbang's advice is good.

Now, this is why I always tell people that using wireless is a stupid idea. My mother uses wireless and is always getting hacked, and they always change the router's password, it doesn't matter how much I tell her, like most people, she seems to think the guy with a criminal record for hacking and a bunch of IT qualifications doesn't know anything about it.

[commandergc]

Now, this is why I always tell people that using wireless is a stupid idea.

Nothing wrong with WiFi as long as it's correctly configured and secured. Use long pass-phrases, use WPA2, change the default SSID and access points default password and username. Also changing passwords now and then as well as using MAC filtering will help keep things secure. Keeping an eye on what is connecting would also be a good idea, having the router/access point email it's logs to you helps too.

Never had my WiFi hacked and neither has anyone else that i have setup.

[Hígh Treason]

Nonesnse, it is impossible to keep people out of a WiFi connection, it is impossible to make an "un-hackable" system, even with wired, the difference being, with wired you are quite likely to notice your neighbour walking in and plugging a Cat5 cable into your switch.

The thing to keep in mind is that Wireless is nothing more than a radio signal, and one of the great things about radios is that anybody else with a radio can listen to those frequencies, the same rule applies for wireless.

[commandergc]

Sure you can capture packets but it's practically impossible to crack WPA2-PSK as long as you use a 63 character pass-phrase that includes a mixture of upper and lower case, numeric and special characters. And when did i say un-hackable? Any way you would have to capture the initial handshake as that is the only way to even begin to try and crack WPA2-PSK.

[Hígh Treason]

I never claimed you said anything was un-hackable, I merely threw it in there as people often jump to the conclusion that I am saying wired is un-hackable and I thought I would kill that issue before it even arose.

WPA2-PSK is relatively easy to break in to with the right software, you can even do it from a PSP with a bit of know-how. You may as well put a Free WiFi sticker in your window.

The point is, someone could potentially break into a wireless network undetected where this is damn near impossible with a wired network, the fact that people still think the security level on wireless networks is comparable to that of wired is laughable.

[David]

thats one of the reasons i never use wireless, you never know what the guy in the unmarked van is doing parked outside your house.. even worse if you discover his got a laptop open!

[dylan]

WPA2-PSK is relatively easy to break in to with the right software, you can even do it from a PSP with a bit of know-how. You may as well put a Free WiFi sticker in your window.

I don't think it's quite that simple.

If you have a truly random password using upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters and a 63 character length it would take a computer longer than you will live to crack the passcode. You can only crack pre shared keys which are dictionary words or which are of a pretty short length.

http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=cracking_wpa

If you know of anyway to reliably do this though I'd be fascinated to find out how from a purely academic perspective 

Dyls