Schaumburg Computer Repair and More:

Schaumburg computers is your one stop shop for computer repairs and installation.  Schaumburg computers employs highly qualified that can solve your problem and explain in plain english on how it was fixed.

Schaumburg Computers onsite technicians will diagnois the problem quickly and tell you what needs to be fixed.  We will also give you many different options that will fix all budgets.

 Some common service for Schaumburg computers are:

1. Home wireless networks - Often users are unsure wether their network is safe or not. Schaumburg computer techs can show you how to secure and setup your wireless network for great throughput and security. We can give you the fastests network on the block and keep your family safe.

2. Slow Computers - If you have a computer that you think should be fast but is dog slow then you might have spyware. Schaumburg computer techs can remove the spyware and show you how to prevent further infections.

3. Home offices - Schaumburg computer techs are experts in setting up home offices: Backup systems, remote office access, mobile devices, printing, filsharing and websites are the name of the game for home offices. You might have a small office but your problems can be big with a poor tech setup. We have the answers  to your tech head ache.

4. Purchasing - Do you have a tech budget but don’t knwo what you should buy, Shaumburg computers will help you define you needs and fit it into your budget. 

5. Security - ID theft and wireless hijacking exposes you and your family to hackers and criminals. Your life patterns and files stored on your computer,  if your front door lock was broken you would get it fixed, let us help you lock down your computer and keep your family safe.

6. Safe Guards - Tired of Spyware and Viruses infecting your teens computer? We have the answers Give us a call. 847-847-8534

Schaumburg Computers Repair and Wireless Tips
Wireless Router trouble shooting for the Famously Frustrated

1. Open up internet explorer type in http://192.168.1.1 under password type admin1 and proceed to your router interface. Most people don’t even know how to go to their router interface. Linksys wireless routers all have default passwords of admin1 or admin. Your wireless routers interface is where your entire configuration takes place. If you don’t know your routers default password just go to google and type in your routers model number and “Default password” some website will have it.

2. Reset your router – Some times after many changes and many restarts your routers configuration files can get messed up. Even after you many changes via your routers web interface they won’t stick. So you might need to Reset you router by Taking a Paper clip and pressing the button in back of the router for about thirty seconds. This will reset it and give you a fresh start.

3. Reset Part Two, another option to reset your wireless router is to proceed to your wireless routers web interface and find the setting that says factory defaults.

4. Upgrade your wireless routers firmware. If you purchase a new wireless router and it isn’t working you will want to upgrade the firmware. Firmware is the programs that run on the wireless routers motherboard. Up can download your wireless routers firmware from the manufactures website. Follow the directions to a tee or you will brick your router. Tips do not upgrade your wireless routers firmware via a wireless connection and don’t turn off the wireless router when it is in the middle of upgrading.

5. Bad signal = Bad Placement before you return your wireless router because you don’t get a signal place it in a new spot. Remember the default Di-Pole omni-directional antennas do not transmit from the tips they transmit from the sides radiating in a doughnut type pattern. So if you have your wireless router near a outside wall half your signal is going outside.

6. Can’t acquire a network address means that you don’t have your wireless routers DHCP settings configured or your wireless adapters not configured correctly?

7. If you can’t seem to connect to a wireless router even through you know that you have the correct pass phrase, the wireless router might have might have MAC address filtering on. Either add your MAC address to the filter or disable it.

8. If you keep seeing your wireless adapter connecting and reconnecting then you might have interference from somewhere so change your channel to something else.

9. Can’t get to the Internet but can connect to the wireless router? Then go to your wireless routers web interface and check to see if you have a DHCP address from your Internet provider. If you do or you don’t try to renew it then you might be able to connect.

10. After many hours of trouble shooting a wireless router and you still can’t figure out what to do just go to google and type in your wireless router model and trouble shooting and you will find many more tips 10.5 If all that dosen’t work smash it with a hammer, it won’t make it work but at least you will feel better.

Warning you could be on the verge of solving your wireless networking headaches. If you click on this link http://www.wirelessninja.com you will find a solution to your wireless networking needs. Simple and Secure wireless networking be the Wireless Ninja.

Social Engineering in its basic form is hacker talk for manipulating computer users out of their username and password. Social engineering really goes beyond just usernames and passwords. A well planned social engineering attack can destroy companies. All of the most devastating information thefts have used some sort of social engineering attack. Social engineering is so effective because computer admins and security experts spend all their time patching systems and not training employees about information security. Information security goes beyond patching computers, it is a combination of physical security, computer/network policy and employee training.

This article will describe many of the common security flaws that information thieves take advantage off and how you can prevent them.

1. Web sites Information – Company web sites are the best place to start when gathering information. Often a company will post all their employees names, email addresses, positions and phone numbers for everyone to see. You want to limit the number of employees and phone numbers listed on a web site. Also, live active links to employee email addresses should be avoided. A common mistake is a company’s email user name will be the same as their network logon, example: email address of jsmith@nocompany.com has a user name of jsmith for the network with the same password for email and the network.

2. Phone Scams – Scamming someone on a phone is very simple. Company employees need to be trained to be courteous but cautious when giving callers information over the phone. One hacking scam is a hacker will call a company posing as computer salesmen. The salesmen will ask the secretary what type of computers they have, do they have a wireless network and what type of operating systems they run. Hackers can use this information to plan their attack on the network. Train your employees to refer any IT related questions to Tech Support.

3. Outside Contractors – Outside contractors should have a security liaison to monitor their activities. Security liaisons should be briefed on what work the contractor is hired to perform, area of operation, identity of contractor and if the contractor will be removing items from the work site.

4. Dumpster Diving – The easiest way to get information about anyone is to go through their trash. Shredders should be used in all cases or shredding services should be hired. Also, the Dumpster should be in a secure location and under surveillance.

5. Secretaries – They are your first line of defense, train them to not let anyone into your building unless they are for certain whom they are. Security cameras should be place in the main entrance way and also on the outside of the building. A thief who is probing your network will test to see if he is challenged upon entering the building, cameras can help identify patterns and suspicious people.

6. NO PASSWORDS – Make it company policy that the tech department will never call you or email you asking for your username or password. If somebody does call and ask for a password or username red flags will go up every where.

7. LOG OFF – Social Engineering attacks get the hacker into the building and they will usually find many workstations where the user hasn’t logged off. Make it company policy that all users must log off their workstations every time they leave it. If the policy is not followed then the employee should be written up or docked pay. Don’t make a hacker’s job any easier than it already is.

8. Training – Information security training is a must for any size company. Information security is a layered approach that starts with the physical structure of the building down to how each work station is configured. The more layers your security plan has the harder it is for an information thief to accomplish his mission.

Installing Wireless Access Points: Errors

After you have performed your site survey, installed your access points, and configured your clients…you will always find problems some where. Hopefully you can avoid some of the errors listed below.

1. Access Point Placement - Do not place access points in corners, by phones, large metal objects, behind posts, microwave ovens.

2. Antenna Diversity - Don’t have your access pont at full transmission power if it dosen’t need to. The most secure wireless network is one that nobody knows about. Often A medium sized business with a couple cheap access points will be broadcastin their signal for blocks.

3. Antenna Installation - Reduce you cable length as much as possible. Also check the maxium cable length for that antenna.

4. No dynamic IP addresses - Give all your wireless access points permanent IP addresses.

5. Same channel - Change your wireless access points to the same channel but don’t leave it at the default.

6. Quality vs Quantity - Spend the money on a good access points and antennas. You want as few access points in one area as possible.

7. Spend the Money on POE ( Power over ethernet)access points - With POE your not limited to where you can place your access points.

8. Firmware - Update your wireless access points firmware before you install it. You could fry your access point and have to uninstall, that sucks.

War drivers are in the business of finding wireless access points, documenting them and uploading their locations to the web. Why would someone do this, well for several reasons:

First they want free internet access. Next they could just be war driving as a hobby; finally they could be targeting your network for financial gain. One of the most asked questions is how do you stop hackers from trying to hack your wireless lan and how to catch them in the act.

Stopping Wardrivers:

1. Use directional antennas: One of the most under stated uses of directional antennas are how they keep your wireless signal within your area of operation. If you are using a Omni directional antenna that is causing half the signal to travel outside your building, you have a major security problem. Also while using your wireless directional antenna turndown transmit power to reduce your signal strength if you can.

2. Blend your wireless antennas into your buildings architecture or keep them low profile. This is not expensive, the whole point is not letting your antennas stick out like a sore thumb so anyone driving by doesn’t say, wow they have a wireless network. Once again the best way to stop people from trying to hack your wireless network is to keep it hidden.

3. Use Kismet or Airsnort – Make a cheap wireless Intrusion detection system. Use an older desktop computer install Linux, install a USB wireless adapter or PCI wireless adapter and boom you have your wireless war driver stopper. Both Kismet and airsnort will alert you when wireless clients are probing your network. If a wireless client is using netstumber and not joining networks they will be found by Kismet. Their wireless adapters MAC address will be logged and other details of the operating system. Most of the time these could be false hits but if you notice a pattern of the same MAC address probing networks you could have hacker issues.

4. Security Cameras – No matter how hard you try not to have your signal bleed outside your operations area it will…to a point. Probe your own network as if you were a wardriver. Don’t just use a standard wireless adapter to find out where you still can detect your network. You will want to use a highly directional antenna to see how far away you can detect your own network. Once you know your weak points setup some cheap security cameras to monitor those areas.

5. Setup a Honey Pot – Give the Wardriver what they want, a network to hack. Take an access point connect it to a standalone switch with another junk computer connected to that switch. Name the SSID something sounding important like server WLAN and name the computer Database. Finally use a weak password or just leave the access point without any security. Script kiddies who say they “hack networks” really are only connecting to open wireless lans with no security. If you give them a “Important sounding SSID with a “database to hack” this will keep them occupied until you can track them down. There are many honeypot programs free and commercial that will simulate networks or servers but are really just recording all the hackers’ information and types of attacks.

6. Use a RADIUS Server – RADIUS servers require Wireless clients to authenticate with a username and password not just with a PSK (Pre- Shared Key). With out a RADIUS server you really don’t know who is on your WLAN. With a RADIUS server you know who is accessing your WLAN and when they accessed it. Also a RADIUS server gives you the ability of creating policies for times your WLAN can be accessed and other required security features the wireless clients must have enabled their computers.

Now let’s put this all together to catch our hacker. First you are going through your daily routine of checking logs on your Kismet IDS server and you notice the same MAC address probing networks but not joining. Next you check your help tickets and notice that in one area of the building clients were having trouble connecting to the wireless network or they had trouble staying connected. Flags go up in your head, so you go over to your honeypot server and check that . You notice it was accessed around the same time of the Kismet logs showed a client probing the network. The honey pot recorded the MAC address of the WAR driver and the operating system and the computer name.

Next you check your security cameras for that time but don’t really notice anything. So for the next couple days you keep monitoring your honey pot server and watch the hacker try and crack the WLAN and the database server. The whole process of cracking wireless encryption is actually two steps. The first step is gathering enough packets for your cracking program to crack. This whole process of gathering enough packets can takes days or weeks not five minutes. Now once you do have enough packets 64 bit WEP encryption can be cracked in less that five minutes. 128 bit encryption can take many times longer, WPA with TKIP and AES encryption can takes months to crack.

My whole point is that you have some time to catch your hacker because he will be back many times, assuming that you already have at least the basic security features in place. Now once you have all your logs compiled and your honey pot data you should have a good idea how the hacker behaves. Check your security cameras and you probably notice the same car or person in the area around that time. Take that information to your in house security and tell them to watch for that vehicle or person and call the police.

If you are lucky security or police will spot him and apprehend him. Convicting him or her will be tough but with your compiled logs and video you should have a lot of evidence to help your case.

Hidden Secretes to Fixing your wireless connetion

Do you always notice your wireless adapter is always dropping and reconnecting to your wireless network. If you don’t know what I mean just watch the balloon in the bottom right hand corner of you windows Xp task bar. Your wireless adapter should stay connected and that’s it if you are constantly connecting and reconnecting then you have problems.

1. Update your wireless adapters Driver - To obtain the most updater driver for your wireless adapter proceed to the manufactures website and go the support section. They should ask you for your model of wireless adapter, leading you to the most up to date driver for your wireless adapter. Updating your wireless adapter is very important because if you are trying to connect to a network that is using WPA2 most of the initial drivers already have patches out. After you re-install your wireless adapters driver then you will need to restart you computer.

2. Next if this still doesn’t work you should take the battery out of your laptop and hold the power button down for about a minute. Not sure of the exact details of why this works but it does have something to do with getting rid of all the static charges that might interfere with your wireless adapter.

3. Stopping and restarting windows xp wireless zero configuration utility - Proceed to the run menus and type msconfig, then go to services and go all the way down to the bottom and uncheck the wireless zereo configuration utility and then restart your computer. Next after your wireless laptop is powered up then we will restart the wireless zero configuration utility, go to the run menu again and typ services.msc, press W to go all the way to the bottom and then right clidk the wireless zero config services and press start.

4. Delete all of you wireless network profiles - Reconfigure all your wireless network profiles by typing in your SSID, WPA, WPA2 and passphrase. Try using WPA2 but not use AES encryption, use mixed or TKIP this might help.

5. Update all of your wireless access points Firmware - When WPA2 first came out all wireless hardware companies rushed out updated drivers and firmware, well most of those drivers and firmware’s had minor glitches which have been fixed now.

6. Change your wireless adapters stickiness - In you wireless adapters advanced properties check to see that your your wireless adapters stickiness is set to medium - Stickiness means how aggressively your wireless router will jump from access point to access point in order to find the best signal. If it is set to high you might end up losing more that gaining.

The first things I would do before doing anything else is updating your wireless adapter’s firmware and then deleting your wireless network profiles.

Schaumburg Computers: Basic Tips on Removing Spyware 

Spyware infects your computer through Internet Explorer active X controls or other scripts. The spyware will install itself on you computer creating process that run in the back ground collecting information on your internet habits. They see which website you frequent and start sending you spam or pop-ups. The most malicious spyware can help hackers collect credit card information and key aspects of your identity.

The reason spyware is so hard to remove is because these process have to be stopped and then deleted. Spyware programs can prevent deletion by randomly renaming files and restarting process when a spyware deletion program attempts to disinfect a computer. Also the other hard part of removing spyware is the numerous amount of registry keys that are installed.

The following steps are for basic spyware removal. Often these steps will give you enough time to recover your data so you can perform and fresh install of your computer. Remember, in the computer security world once a computer is infected it can never be trusted again.

First disconnect the computer from the internet. Next you will want to find a computer that is not infected and down these applications from the internet to a flash drive: Spybot Search and Destroy, Adware, Spyblaster, and Hijack this. To find these applications all you have to do is type their name in google.

Now you have downloaded the applications transfer them to the infected computer and install everything except hijack this. Now you will want to reboot your computer into safe mode. You can boot into safe mode by pressing F8 and choosing safe mode. Once in safe mode run Spy Bot Search and destroy. Follow all the defaults when running spybot search and destroy and you will begin to see all the infected files on your computer. The program will finish running and list all the infected files and in the right column it will give a descriptions.

Now, you will be prompted to fix these files, look at the files that are listed and make sure you aren’t removing anything important. Once you have checked all the files that you want removed, you might be prompted that S&D was unable to remove all the files and needs to restart you computer and run at start up. If this happens then you computer will restart and S&D will attempt to run at startup getting to the files before they can initiate.

Next you will want to run Adaware in safe mode and follow the defaults. This program often will find files that Spy will miss and vice versa. It doesn’t matter which order you run them just run them in safe mode. After you run both of these programs you will want reboot your computer into regular mode and down load the latest updates and definitions and re-run them again in safe mode. With the latest updates even more spyware will be removed.

Now, if you still are having problems the you will want to run Hijack This and submit your log to the hijack this forum where forum members can tell you exactly what to remove. Hijack this will list all the process that have Hijacked your internet browser. That forum is great and it is filled with very knowledgeable people.

Once you think that you have removed the problem spyware you need to install Spyware Blaster and Firefox. Firefox is an internet browser and Spyware blaster will attempt to block the spyware from being installed kind of like a flu shot. Firefox does not use scripting and active x controls thus eliminating a ton of spyware threats. Good luck and if you use FireFox prior to being infected you probably won’t get infected.

Schaumburg Computers Wireless Encryption Standards Tutorials

WEP – Is the first and lowest standard for wireless security. You will hear security experts say that WEP can be cracked in 5 minutes; this is true, only once you have sniffed enough network traffic for weak IV’s. Collecting enough wireless traffic will take at least a couple hours under ideal conditions. WEP can be cracked because it uses the same key for each data frame; so with enough traffic you can capture the whole key. WEP is getting harder to crack because firmware upgrades are helping prevent the transmission of weak data packets.

WPA(Wi-Fi Protected Access) – Is the upgraded version of WEP. WPA’s main answer to the flaw of WEP is that instead of using the same key for each data frame it changes the keys. This rotation of keys makes in vastly more difficult for a cracker to capture the whole shared key. WPA also helps wireless clients roam from access point to access point while working in an enterprise environment more efficiently.

WPA uses two different types of encryption, TKIP( Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) and AES(Advanced Encryption Standard). AES is the more advance form of encryption over TKIP. Some wireless adapters may not support AES encryption so you need to take that into account when planning your wireless network.

WPA2 – Further improves upon the ability for the wireless client to roam from access point to access point. There are different ways to implement WPA and WPA2:

WPA-PSK with TKIP – PSK Stands for Pre Shared Key. The client and the access point or wireless router will each share a passphrase which is encrypted with TKIP.

WPA-PSK with AES – This is the same as the above but you will use AES encryption. Remember you will have to monitor your wireless network because you might have more dropped packets with AES if your firmware is not up to date on your access point or wireless adapter.

WPA2-PSK + Mixed – This solution still uses the shared key but will accept either TKIP or AES encryption clients. This option is only available if you are using WPA2

WPA-Radius- This is the most secure wireless solution at this time. WPA rotates the keys, TKIP or AES encrypts the keys, and the RADIUS server authenticates the user. Authenticating the user is very important because with out a RADIUS server you really don’t know who is using your wireless network. A RADIUS server is basically a database of user names with passwords. If your PSK is leaked to the wrong person or stolen somehow, you don’t have any control of who is accessing your network. If you are using a RAIDUS server you have complete control over who enters your wireless network. RADIUS servers can create policies which limit what network resources the wireless user has available. A great policy to implement with a radius server is limiting the times and days your users can access the network. If your business hours are only during the day you won’t want people using it at night. Also, you can use a RADIUS server to run a wireless hot spot which will take care of billing and customer portal.

Home users will want to use at least WPA with either TKIP or AES to protect your network. If you are more tech savy you should use WPA2, this requires you to down load the WPA2 patch for Windows XP from Microsoft and update your wireless adapters driver. Some older adapters do not support WPA or WPA2 so make sure you know what your buying.

Business users will want to use WPA-RADIUS or WPA2-RADIUS. To use RADIUS you need to install a RADIUS server. Microsoft windows 2003 server can be used as a RADIUS server or you can use one of the many open source RADIUS servers which are free on the internet, such as Free RADIUS.

Just remember that if you use WPA2 you will have to down load the patch from Microsoft and update your wireless adapters driver.

Keep your wireless network Simple and Secure.

Do you need a Wireless Router or A wireless access point? Don’t Know then you better read this article.

While planning for your wireless network you might be asking what is the difference between a router and an access point. You need to think of a router as more of a server because it performs many functions like a server. An access point only provides a portal for wireless client to connect to your existing LAN.

Routers can perform many functions. Routers can connect many different WLANs together acting like a traffic cop. Routers also act as a DHCP server. A DHCP server assigns dynamic IP address to your computer every time your computer starts up. If you don’t have a DHCP server then you will have to assign each computer on your network a permanent IP address.

As I have said before your router can also act like a traffic cop. You can use a router to perform port forwarding to certain computers on your LAN. For example you can direct all internet traffic looking for your game server’s port number to a specific computer on your LAN.

The ability to connect multiple computers to the internet is one of the main features of a router. The router is assigned one WAN IP address from your ISP. This IP address is called a public IP address that everyone on the internet can see. Because you have multiple computers connected to your router the router uses a protocol called NAT {Network address translation} NAT will assign the computers that are behind your routers IP address, private IP addresses. NAT acts as a firewall because computers on the internet cannot in theory even see your computers. They will only see the IP address of your router. NAT does block traffic from reaching your computers but it will not block Trojans from going out to the internet. That is why I do recommend installing a firewall on your LAN computers.

The role of an access point on a LAN is to give the wireless user a door way to enter. The more people that enter the door at the same time the slower they will go. 802.11b access points say they will give you a through put rate of 11mps but the actual rate is around 5MPS. 802.11g has a rating of 54mbps with an actual through put of 20mbps. The access points do have most of the same security features as a router such as WEP, WPA, 8021x and TKPI but they will not have the traffic cop functions like a router. Also the access points will not have NAT which would add an unnecessary layer to your network. To keep it simple access points just simulate plugging in your laptop to a port in the wall and that’s it.A router is used on the border of you network to act as a traffic cop deciding who can come in and blocking those you want to keep out.

Is your neighborhood have too many wireless networks which interfere with yours????

One of the most common complaints is that every time a neighbor puts up a wireless network your wireless network is slower or you get booted off.

The easiest thing you can due is change your channel on your wireless router. Almost all wireless networks have default channel of 6. Change your wireless network channel to something try channel 11 first.

If you have the money purchases a MIMO wireless router. This will overpower one radio access points.

The most common complaint about wireless interference is dropped packets. MIMO wireless routers let you transfer and receive at twice the rate because they have two transmitters and two receivers…or two radios!! This gives you a better quality signal and better coverage.

Next tip - Placement of your wireless router is the key. If you have a wireless router in one of your edge bedrooms half you signal is being sent out of your house with the default dipole antennas.

If you are going to keep your default Di-pole antennas then you need place your router in the middle of your house away from large metal objects.

Next, you can get rid of those cheap rubber duck antennas and make your purchase directional antennas. Directional antennas will focus your wireless signal in one direction.

If you purchase a directional antenna you need to change your transmit and receive antenna to the same. Or purchase a wireless antenna with diversity meaning two TNC connectors.

You might want to think about purchasing another wireless adapter. PCMICA wireless cards often are subject to damage.

Changing your wireless transmit power - You can change your wireless transmit power but it comes with a price. First this will cause your wireless router to work harder and heat up more thus reducing your wireless routers life span. Their is no need to have transmit power over 70mw for a home or small office. You can crank up your transmit power but remember more of you signal will bleed out into the street giving war drivers another target.

You will know if you are having interference if you are constantly connecting and reconnecting to your wireless network. The first thing to try is to try and change the channel to 1 or 11 or what ever works. Next you can make or purchase a wireless directional antenna to focus your signal where you need it. Third Move your wireless router to another place in your home. Fourth boosting your wireless signals transmit power has it’s benefits and it’s consequences, you could fry your wireless router and it could give you hacker issues. Finally if all else fails go out and purchase a new wireless MIMO router.