WiFi Networks & Identity Thieves

My good friend and colleague Badri told me sometime back that he is able to get free wireless signals in his laptop at home. I checked – amazing I got three free wireless network access at home. If you don't protect
your wireless computer network from hackers, you could discover neighbors or strangers snooping around your personal computer files says,David Kirkpatrick. He cautions that Identity theft is reaching epidemic proportions. Several big corporations have reported break-ins into their computer systems containing personal information on hundreds of thousands customers. Even though we fear hackers stealing our personal information, it is amazing to see many unprotected wireless networks one encounter during travel. It's not unusual in urban areas, in hotels, for example, to find several networks available. One friend, found 67 unprotected networks in a metro journey along the way.
David adds,thieves and hackers have other ways of getting into our home computers besides through unprotected wireless connections. Any broadband Internet connection, but lack a firewall, your machine is being probed constantly. If it has a Windows operating system, it's probably got unwelcome code on it placed there by hackers, some of whom may be harvesting personal data. (Macs are much less likely to be compromised.) Millions of homes lack good firewalls and thus are vulnerable.
Our understanding of their power and their complexities—and the associated risks—has not kept pace with our adoption of them. Ignorance of this could have profound consequences, if it enables hackers to break into their computers. Network security problems could get much more serious, since there seems little likelihood that most computer users are going to take the protective measures that experts routinely urge.