When a middle schooler becomes a neighborhood hacker

[dstrom]

This post on Internet Evolution is instructive in what lengths a middle school teen went through to compromise someone's home wireless router. And what lengths security professionals had to go through to regain control of the router.

"This kid had changed basic access passwords, altered the default IP address scheme had, and enabled WPA2 security. None of the traditional security tactics worked; this kid defeated them all, in real time." All for being able to play a video game after school. As the author states, "With the advent of easy to use exploit tools, the cancer of hacking has spread to your front door."

[csharding]

Well good for the kid changing the basic access passwords.  They should be changed from the default.  And also kudos to the kid enabling WPA2.  This should have been always enabled.

Now as the individual that manages the WAP I would say change the default password to something very archaic so that it cannot be hacked via brute force method.  This protects the IP address scheme.  As far as the WPA2 being enabled well everyone better have some sort of encryption set up on their WAP or they are asking to be hacked.

Nuff said!!