No. of Recommendations: 2
Wendy: Other than looking on my network, is there another way to find out if a device is infected?
I've tried, without too much success, to parse that question into something answerable.
There are at least three ways a consumer's network gets compromised:
1) Backdoors and flaws are introduced into the design of the product at the factory. This is not limited to the Chinese building these issues into the consumer routers they manufacture for all the major US vendors, but if you read the Snowden WikiLeaks dumps, also built into US manufactured products sold abroad.
2) Companies make their money by the snazzy features they design into their hardware and software. Constant vigilance and continuing to bolster security costs money. Since when their devices are hacked they have little financial exposure, they simply use whatever version of security infrastructure was current at the time the device was manufactured and frequently there were vulnerabilities found later on by nefarious parties.
3) By the negligent and/or ignorant behavior of the owners/administrators of the network who through carelessness or social engineering let their networks be compromised.
The best I can suggest is to be vigilant. Keep up to date on what's going on (Reading cryptogram's monthly newsletter -
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/ - is a good beginning). Unless you are being targeted by a government agency, etc., assuming you have a long, reasonably complex key, your wifi is unlikely to provide an entry point as it's short-range and there are not a whole lot of close neighbors in your neck of the woods (in my case, I live surrounded by all sorts of former Soviet Republics type of people, so there is more opportunity for concern).
Thee path to your network is funneled through your modem and router. Normally, your modem is brain-dead and in any case outside your router. That leaves you one gateway to keep an eye on. Make sure your router is running the latest available firmware and get into the habit of re-booting it once a month (long story).
And don't fret too much.
Jeff
