Posted: 8/31/2014 4:18:51 PM EDT
| My roommate has recently started learning how to hack, and he informed me that he sniffed my entire xbox live session the other night, obtaining the IP addresses of everyone I played with. I don't have an issue with this, but if he decides he wants to get my passwords or anything like that, how can I keep him from doing that. We've already discussed the limits as to what he's allowed to do on our network, but for me, its impossible to tell exactly what he's doing and whether he's honoring our agreement. What can I do to secure my computer? |
Strictly speaking, if he has physical access to the machine, yothen it's already compromised. 
ETA: Simple measures to keep honest people honest, though... BIOS should should be set to boot only from the hard drive. Password-protect the BIOS. Use strong pass phrases for everything. Keep Windows up to date. Firewall it. |
| How is your xbox connected to the internet? If you are on wifi, your options are very limited. By nature, wifi signals are broadcasts, and available to anyone within range. If you have a roommate on the same network, he can use any number of programs to see what you are doing. |
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How is your xbox connected to the internet? If you are on wifi, your options are very limited. By nature, wifi signals are broadcasts, and available to anyone within range. If you have a roommate on the same network, he can use any number of programs to see what you are doing. I'm not concerned with him getting my xbox live password or anything. I'm more worried about bank accounts or something sensitive (not that i think my roommate is a criminal or anything) from my laptop. But i'd assume its the same as the xbox since both are connected via wifi. |
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How is your xbox connected to the internet? If you are on wifi, your options are very limited. By nature, wifi signals are broadcasts, and available to anyone within range. If you have a roommate on the same network, he can use any number of programs to see what you are doing. I would be more worried about a keylogger since he obviously doesn't respect your privacy. |
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I'm not concerned with him getting my xbox live password or anything. I'm more worried about bank accounts or something sensitive (not that i think my roommate is a criminal or anything) from my laptop. But i'd assume its the same as the xbox since both are connected via wifi. Quoted:
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How is your xbox connected to the internet? If you are on wifi, your options are very limited. By nature, wifi signals are broadcasts, and available to anyone within range. If you have a roommate on the same network, he can use any number of programs to see what you are doing. I'm not concerned with him getting my xbox live password or anything. I'm more worried about bank accounts or something sensitive (not that i think my roommate is a criminal or anything) from my laptop. But i'd assume its the same as the xbox since both are connected via wifi. Switching to https when you can will help, many browsers automatically do this, or can be set up to do so. https just encrypts your info before it going out on the wireless, so when your roomie looks at is he sees gibberish. Another option is if you have a router that allows multiple wifi networks, put a password on the router, get on a guest wifi network, change the key, and use that. But if he has physical access to the router, or he gets the key somehow, he can pretty easily get around this. |
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What you have is a trust issue, not a technical issue. I *can* get into just about ANYTHING at my house or on my employer's network. I don't, though. I also don't make comments that make people wonder if I will.
You either need to find a way to trust your room mate or get a new one. Because he has physical access to your shit, there's not really much "consumer level" protection that is going to stop him if he's mounting a remotely determined attack. |
| Throw the dude out if you don't trust him. He has physical access to your machine while you are gone and could easily get your passwords with a keylogger. Maybe you could set up a dropcam or something to see if he fucks with it, but you could avoid that just by throwing the dude out. |
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Use only hard wired switches and wired internet, you can still leave wi-fi on a port on that switch, but your data will be slightly more secure unless roommate jacks a hub between switch and main router (which should have wi-fi disabled).
Encrypt everything you can. Xbox live doesn't do that, so it's out of your hands unless you use a VPN (problem is finding "another end" for VPN that is trusted). Always remember this: Easy to use <----------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Secure The only way you have secure and easy to use is if you are a sysadmin, even then, it's always adding keystrokes or clicks and keeping track of certificates. |
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Posting from work. I don't think his beginner hacking skills can hack the .gov Quoted:
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Also, he could be watching your online habits and know you are posting in this thread. Better lock your bedroom door and sleep lightly. Posting from work. I don't think his beginner hacking skills can hack the .gov Having worked as a SysAdmin/Network Engineer for the Fed.gov, I assure you it's not nearly as sophisticated as the average layman would think it would be. In fact, one of the reasons I was soooo unsatisfied with the job was that the feds would rather make their data accessible to every swinging dick on the payroll than make it as secure as, say, the cable company might. "Short-sighted, ham-fisted amateurs" was actually the nicest thing I could say about any of their InfoSec team. |
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Encrypt your drive, and shut the machine down when you're not there.
The encryption won't help when your machine is online, since it's essentially unencrypted by the OS. Any access would see the unencrypted data. When the machine is powered off, the data would be encrypted. Someone could try booting the machine, but if they don't know the key, the data would remain encrypted. They could slap the drive in another machine, but it would still be encrypted. Use the software firewall and stop any unneeded services. Close it down. Be sure that whatever you browse that requires a password login is all done over HTTPS. But yeah, if your roommie has physical access to your network, it's difficult to be 100% secure. |