Digi Wireless Broadband full with virus!

Hi there...

Either you guys believe the statement or not, i am pretty sure you had experienced some wireless network and you could have heard that Wifi that is not password protected is not safe as it tend to be open for virus attack by hackers. But you would have not experience such virus attack when you using KFC, McD, or A&W free wifi. It is because you are in a small network, LAN which is connected to the net. So what ever attack that might reach ur pc must be done through LAN, and it cannot pass through WAN(internet) because only the internet router would be attacked and it has build-in firewall which can ignore the attack. In most cases, the router will run Linux engine in it and clearly those virus intended for windows PC wont able to threat the router.

But, the things (the virus attack by hacker through WAN) becomes visible when you are connected directly to the net. Yes, direct connection example is Streamyx, Celcom Wireless Broadband, Maxis, and the newly introduced Digi broadband.

Virus attack to your pc is possible because you are connected to WAN and assigned dynamic IP. The hackers will attack the same WAN you connected and simply attack the IP range and if your IP is one of the range, then sure it attacks your pc as well.

In most cases, people do not see this virus attacked clearly because they do not have a strong antivirus that keeping on eye on everything from files, downloads, emails, and even webpages that you surf. If you have such strong antivirus, you can notice the antivirus is warning you about the attack in real-time. The antivirus that I always recommend to my clients is Avast. The home edition is free and it is very strong to monitor the network and activity of your PC to ensure it is free from all attacks. Even i remember PC-cillin is also capable of detacting attacks in real-time.

So what's wrong? The problem is, the WAN network that our telco provide is not strongly monitored and not easy to detact the hackers on network. When you connect your PC to internet, if the you have direct IP address, then your PC is highly in threat.

I never notice the hackers attack much on Streamyx network because the IP address range is a lot and low probably for the hackers to choose your network to attack.

But small and new telco such as Maxis, Digi and Celcom uses only small IP address range as thats how their net infrastructure is been setup. Leaving you behind with high probably for hackers to attack your IP address.

From my own experience, Celcom is open to the attack and very active/often attacked. When I surfing the net, Avast will alert me about the attack being performed by the WAN through different ports and different ways. Avast able to kick it all out and keep the PC calm. But the annoying part is the attack is active and I would see the alert like every 10 minutes. Really annoying. This is still in OK kinda range because the virus is not very strong and Antivirus still can deal it.

Recently, just 2 days ago, I bought Digi Wireless Broadband as they promise speed of 700kbps for RM58 a month and that is lowest in Malaysia. Today when I use the network for about 1 hour, avast warned me about virus attack and the virus is 'wlcomm.exe' or something. The messy part is, Avast was not able to get rid of it because it get into the memory so fast. Then when i restart the PC, avast keep warning me about the virus being active in memory and it is force-shuting-down avast related files. The system also started to lag and I seriously know that this is how things will be if the virus trying to take over the PC. Therefore, Avast itself has a build-in on boot scanner which is really powerful and will help to kill the virus by scanning the virus without starting the normal windows. Avast suggested that option as default for the current situation of my PC and i am proceeding with it. I have alot of files and my on-boot scanning would take at least 1 day. In conclusion, my 1 day of work is affected just because Digi broadband is so in hackers attack. That shows that digi need to way-improve their network security. Although they are front in speed and features, they still out-dated in term of stability, reliability and security.

That do not conclude that I would hate Digi. I still like Digi for providing wireless broadband at more reasonable price for Malaysian. And I would tight-up my antivirus when using Digi broadband.

The motive of writing this blog is to alert you that 'virus sure exist in any WAN' and especially in Malaysia where our network infrastructure is still out-dated on security issues. Therefore, alway have a strong antivirus to help you combat with those virus attacks while you surfing the net and remember to regularly scan your PC if you are active internet user like me. I strongly recommend Avast Antivirus Home Edition which is free and strong to help you combat the virus. Do install it if you are newbie or not really sure which Antivirus to go for.

Do take note that virus attack through web is different from virus attack through IP. The web virus attack is where they would load the virus in the webpage's html content and your browser would accidentally download the virus and be victim. This web virus can be avoided by using Firefox which is strong to block indirect virus downloads. On the other hand, IP address virus attacks happen without involving the webpages or browser. It direct to your computer's opened port. Eventually you cannot keep all port close and you would happen to have certain ports open for software like torrent, remote desktop or even messenger software. At the same time, virus attack by hackers do not mean the hackers need to be present all the time while performing the attack. Because Virus itself would able to spread by its own. For example, when the hacker managed to plant the virus in any of the PC in the network, from there on, that particular itself would start attacking other PC in the network and makes the whole network to be further mess. The more PC infected in the network, the more often the attack would be performed to hijack your PC. That is what happening to Celcom wireless broadband. And soon we can expect to see the Digi network also similarly contaminated because the virus on Digi is more powerful and the network would grow largest very soon (due to very competitive pricing).

Bottom line; Keep your PC safe all the time ~ use safe browser ~ use strong antivirus with regular scan.

Have fun!

Connect Wireless Maxis Broadband to wireless router

Hi all,

It seems like i only blog once a month (but not even once on December 2007). Maybe because I am busy with my work and not much of free time to blog my experience.

Connecting broadband to wireless router is not something new. Everyone can do it. This is because wireless router are designed to detect the wired broadband connect PPPoE and other types of broadband connection. But bringing this to the next step, connecting the Maxis Wireless broadband to wireless router was a nice experience for me as it wasn't as easy as ABC (maybe as hard as XYZ).

Wireless router normally has 4 port for PC and one port for Internet or modem. The HSDPA modem that provided by Maxis when you purchase has all the setting pre-installed as it detect the unique identity of user through the SIM card attached to the modem. This is a HSDPA connection. You can access the internet through HSDPA connection. This means the internet is in plug-and-plug form. And when you try to plug-and-play it with wireless router, it will return dumping you back with no internet connection. And now the logic explanation for this is Wireless Router is not smart enough to identify the HSDPA connect because it do not have any HSDPA function build-in with it.

How to overcome this? How to successfully fix your wireless broadband to wireless router?

Now the answer for the puzzle, as i mentioned earlier wireless router is not smart to detect the HSDPA internet connection, so why must we plug in to the internet port? The wireless router can just work like a wireless hub/switch. This refers to a situation where the wireless router will assign IP to the PC users automatically to each of the PC connected to the wireless router through the 4 PC ports.

This is where the puzzle being solved, plug in the Maxis Wireless Broadband HSDPA modem into PC port 1 of the wireless router. Don't use the internet/modem port of the wireless router.

So, the Maxis Wireless Broadband HSDPA modem will be in PC port 1 and you may connect other PCs to the other 3 ports available in the router.

Now, go to the wireless router setting page which normally will be http://192.168.1.1

In there, set the default IP address for the wireless router to be http://192.168.0.2 and restart the wireless router.

Then go to the new setting page of the modem through address http://192.168.0.2 and set the DHCP server to active and the IP pool can be from 192.168.0.3 until 192.168.0.255 (use small pool for better performance based on how many users will be connected to the wireless router).

Don't restart the router first. Look in the DHCP server setting, you will find a setting space for Primary DNS and Secondary DNS. Set 192.168.0.1 into the Primary DNS field and save it. Then restart the router.

Taadaaa! Surprisingly you are done! Now your Maxis HSDPA modem connected to the wireless router.

You can now just go to the wireless router setting page http://192.168.0.2 and set your wireless network name and security protections which you will normally do when you connect the wireless router to wired broadband. Restart your router once you done with the basic settings.

You can see your network name appear in the wireless network list and click it to get connected with Internet-Ready through Maxis Wireless Broadband HDSPA(or 3.5G)

I experienced this situation and this solution really worked for me. Drop me an email for further advises if you ever face this situation.

Have a nice day all!