My wireless network was hacked.
from AntBlog701

My wireless network was hacked.

I have been enjoying my 802.11n wireless network (sharing with Laurent), until yesterday that I realised my wireless network was hacked for the last few days.

I noticed something wrong with my internet connection, and one of the light has been blinking for the last days, even when both of my Macs (and Laurent's PC) are all off or sleep. Something I did not think too much. Yesterday, I received an automatic email from iiNet informing me that quota is nearly out. I started to aware that there must be something wrong. I've been very busy during this billing month, and I haven't downloaded as much as I used to (not even 1/4 of my usual amount).

I contacted iiNet, they suggested me to check my wireless setting. I had Xtreme N Gigabit Router set to WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2). Apparently, it wasn't enough. I logged into Router's control panel, and I can't see any additional MAC address, however, the wireless indicator was still flashing like crazy. My wireless network must have been hacked, and this guy lives within 802.11n's range.

Here's my quota usage of current billing cycle.

As you can see, I haven't used much overall, except during last few days.
Okay, I did buy 2 songs and one music video from iTunes Store on 30th July, but downloads from iTunes are considered free quota (thanks to iiNet).

Here's the usage for 31th July. I switched off Wi-Fi at around 2:30pm, and you can see the significant decrease of usage. Also, I stayed up late the night before, but went to bed at around 2am, all the computers were off or sleep during the early morning hours.

And this hacker was able to hack into WPA2 protection (I wasn't sure the type of encryption I used), and invisible (I couldn't see his MAC address before I switched off Wi-Fi). This b*st*ard must be living within 802.11n range, and leeching some files. So taking away my usage (assuming 80MB per day, peak hours and 30 MB per day, off-peak), this hacker used 15694.79MB of my peak hour download quota and 11994.5MB off-peak quota. Lucky I am on Home 5 plan (20GB peak hour and 40GB off peak hour) and only 5 more days to go. I know it was not Laurent, as he only access to the Wi-Fi network for my iTunes music library, and he has his own ADSL connection. Yep, we have two separate ADSL connections to the house.

As for now, I've reset the wireless network name and make it invisible, and the encryption is set to AES on WPA2-Personal. And I will keep a close eye on the wireless indicator.

Related blog entries:
802.11n part 2 (22 June, 2007)
802.11n and gigabit ethernet! (21 June, 2007)

Updated I posted a thread in message board for discussion - “My Wi-Fi network was hacked”