Friends and I need help protecting laptops from hackers/snoops on unsecure wifi

Dear MajorGeeks,

My friends and I are worried about what may become a major problem. My self and my friends use our laptops in many places where there is free wifi or otherwise unsecured wireless networks, such as school, friend's house, etc...recently one of my friends claims he was hacked through our school network, and our school IT department agreed with him, they said they would look into it...I found it somewhat suspicious, but my friend is honest and would have no reason to lie about that...anyways, then some of us thought maybe it was our school trying to see what we were doing because they offered him no solutions (we found that odd, despite the school rulebook claims that "they respect the right to privacy and do not look into what we are doing", and we aren't doing anything wrong, its more the principle and the safety of our computers). Also there are a few guys who claim to be "hackers" in our school, and we wouldn't put it past them to be able to do this (they have used the school network before to pull pranks). Either way we are looking for a program to keep ourselves safe and hidden. I have seen products that you have to pay for (ghost-something or other) that claim it will conceal your identity and keep you safe. Then one of my friends looked into using proxy ip addresses (we are confused and would like help with that if that is our only option) but we want to know if there are programs (preferably freeware, we are students with tuition) that can help keep us hidden from hackers and snoops, or make a proxy IP address for us. We are all using Windows and have the firewalls on, and run avast, and firefox (if any of that matters). The MajorGeek's community have always came through for me before (i had some issues with spyware before, and cleaning my computer of junk) and I know there are people out there who can help me and my friends with this and I thank you all in advance for the help!

Sincerely leadster618 and the rest of "the table"

 

First and foremost, you need a good firewall. There are several good, free firewalls available here at MajorGeeks: Comodo, ZoneAlarm, Jetico, and PCTools to name a few. There are other ways to appear more or less 'invisible' on an unsecure network, but I'm not real clear on the details. Take a look at the Covert Ops downloads here at MajorGeeks for some utils for your situation, and be patient.... I'm sure someone else will come along and shed more light on this for you! Good Luck!

hopperdave2000

 

Thanks hopperdave2000 for the suggestions and words of hope. I can see how the firewalls can help, so we'll look into those and I checked the CovertOps section but its more for snooping on others, not hiding yourself...so for anyone out there please help!

 

Okay so I went looking in the downloads section of MajorGeeks, in both security and internet tools...there are two programs "GhostSurf" and "HiProxy" which seem right up our alley, but they are shareware...does anyone know of a free program that does a similar job? Also, does anyone out there know how to do the whole proxy ip address thing....my friend just emailed me about an add on to Firefox called FoxyProxy, does anyone know how that works or how to use it? Please MG Community, we need your help!

 

Get a good firewall, get a good antivirus, and be careful about what you click on while browsing. If you are using an administrator level account, consider creating a more limited account for using when you are on an unsecured connection.

 

Scousetechie, do you use school networks on a college campus, or public wifi spots, like in a bookstore? Judging by your comment I don't think you do, and thank you JustPlayin for backing me on this one, comments like his do nothing for anyone. No we are not "stealing bandwith" we are using our laptops just like normal civilized students in society, for our work. We are all design students (Digital, Graphic, Industrial) and need our computers for everything, that is why this is somewhat a matter of urgency for us as we start our new quarter on monday. Anyways, thank you JustPlayin, we all have firewalls now and we already are using a good antivirus. But its not a problem we have when browsing its the fear that we can be hacked over that wireless network, and as for switching to a lower account just for browsing would mean operating all the time on that account and I don't think many of us would be able to function that way. So the call is still out there, does anyone know how to set-up the whole proxy thing, or know of a freeware program that can keep us secure and hidden from hackers on an unsecured wireless network?

 

Your firewall should prevent anyone from hacking you if it is properly set up. A proxy will not offer you better protection than that. Proxies are used to get around firewall restrictions and obscuring your true IP address while surfing. If you are using XP Pro or Vista, your school's IT dept. may be able to help you set up your laptops to limit what a hacker is able to do remotely, should one gain access to your system.

 

What are you afraid hackers will do, specifically?

 

@just playin: really?! That's It?! I thought that the firewall was breakable, that's why I was so worried. I mean it seemed like if these hackers could get through the windows one (firewall) on my friends it wouldn't be too hard for them to break through another one. But if that's it, then I'm a little more relaxed.
@radiot: Well the hackers have claimed that through the school network they have been able to get access to paypal accounts because of the Gmail password system (apparently if you can get the gmail password by using the security question they can access your paypal abilites). I don't personally use Gmail and paypal together, but two of my friends do. Also, whatever happened to my friend from the hackers (thats the only conclusion we can come to, being that i had already dealt with malware and spyware in the past, I had told all my friends to start running the immunize feature on spybot, ad-aware, and firefox with Adblock Plus, and another adblocker. These have worked for me immensely and I haven't seen anything remotely looking like spyware since) Well after my friends computer started acting up, it would say things like, security threats, which he would deny. and then the command prompt would just pop up and we would see code start flying on it, then it would go to standby or freeze up his cursor...It was really weird. When we talked to the campus IT department, they essentially, "be more careful" and "we can't invade the privacy of the other students until we have proof they are hacking" and though the story sounded like hacking, we couldn't prove anything. Basically the IT department ran a ccleaner knock off on his computer and ran a diskcheck (what good that did I'll never know) and then said, okay (turned his avast security all the way up and the firewall on windows all the way up) and said be more careful out there and if you see any proof of them doing something let us know. Well now my friend has to those security prompts you get when having things up that high (the old, do you allow this site to play *insert media type here*) Well he's sick of it and frankly I don't think we should have to have our user experience become more difficult because of some a$$holes (sry). Honestly, we don't know what the whole proxy thing did except that "it makes us look like we are on another server" (what my friend found out) and so we figured it would keep us away from the hackers and they wouldn't be able to find our computers. But if what Just Playin says is right, then we shouldn't be worried anymore?

 

You should be careful, not panicking. As for hacking Gmail passwords, they are most likely breaking the password at the Gmail servers. They don't need access to your laptops to do that. When you surf the internet, make sure the site is legitimate, especially if it asks for personal information or to execute an application/script.