Chamber Matters Article

The following article appeared in the July/August edition of Chamber Matters, the magazine produced by Rotherham Chamber of Commerce.

Freedom to Surf

Becoming your own boss gives you the freedom and control over your own career and life, but what if your freedom was violated?

Robin Wood of Freedom Technology Services craved the freedom of owning his own company and now through his business he can make your freedom safe and secure!

"Many businesses are using wireless technology to access the internet," said Robin. "However, their business may be under threat from hackers if their connection is not protected."

Robin continues: "In less than two minutes hackers can defeat the security measures protecting many home and business wireless network connections. Defeating these measures could let them capture passwords, steal confidential information or download illegal pornographic material using the connection."

Freedom Technology Services specialises in solving many computer problems and issues, from desktop software to content management systems. Robin's true passion is to make his customers aware of the dangers that hackers can produce and raise the awareness of protecting your company's wireless connection. "Many internet users rely on an old and broken encryption system called Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) to stop others using their wi-fi link, but this can be hacked!" said Robin.

So what can businesses do to protect themselves?

"The only real way to protect yourselves is to stop using WEP and use WPA or WPA2. When choosing the password, it is recommended that it is at least 20 characters. You will probably only enter this once or twice so don't worry about having to remember such a long password. We offer a free random password generator at our website.

There are other techniques which give the feeling of security such as MAC address filtering and hiding your SSID (network name) but these are easily bypassed by anyone with some simple tools.

As well as making your company safer, Robin is also keen to protect our environment. Freedom Technology Services celebrated their 12 month anniversary recently and to thank their customers, they planted a tree for every customer at the Tree Planting Ceremony at the South Yorkshire Forest. "I am very passionate about preserving the environment, and we thought it would be an excellent idea to give something back to nature," said Robin.

To see how Robin can protect your company, call him now on 0114 2998478.