Wireless Networking (Wi-Fi) has made it so easy for you to use the computer, portable media player, mobile phones, video game consoles, and other wireless devices anywhere in the house without the clutter of cables.
How to Secure Your Wireless Network
The good news is that it is not very hard to make your wireless network secure, which will both prevent others from stealing your internet and will also prevent hackers from taking control of your computers through your own wireless network.
Here are a few simple things that you should secure your wireless network:
Step 1. Open your router settings page
First, you need to know how to access your wireless router’s settings. Usually, you can do this by typing in “192.168.1.1” into your web browser, and then entering the correct username and password for the router. This is different for each router, so first, check your router’s user manual.
Step 2. Create a unique password for your router
Once you have logged into your router, the first thing you should do to secure your network is to change the default password* of the router to something more secure.
This will prevent others from accessing the router and you can easily maintain the security settings that you want. You can change the password from the Administration settings on your router’s settings page. The default values are generally admin/password.
Step 3. Change your Network’s SSID name
The SSID (or Wireless Network Name) of your Wireless Router is usually pre-defined as “default” or is set as the brand name of the router (e.g., Linksys). Although this will not make your network inherently* more secure, changing the SSID name of your network is a good idea as it will make it more obvious for others to know which network they are connecting to.
This setting is usually under the basic wireless settings on your router’s settings page. Once this is set, you will always be sure that you are connecting to the correct Wireless network even if there are multiple wireless networks in your area. Don’t use your name, home address, or other personal information in the SSID name.
Step 4. Enable Network Encryption
In order to prevent other computers in the area from using your internet connection, you need to encrypt your wireless signals.
There are several encryption methods for wireless settings, including WEP, WPA(WPA-Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2). WEP is basic encryption and therefore least secure (i.e., it can be easily cracked*, but is compatible with a wide range of devices including older hardware, whereas WPA2 is the most secure but is only compatible with hardware manufactured since 2006.
To enable encryption on your Wireless network, open the wireless security settings on your router’s configuration page. This will usually let you select which security method you wish to choose; if you have older devices, choose WEP, otherwise, go with WPA2. Enter a passphrase to access the network; make sure to set this to something that would be difficult for others to guess, and consider using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters in the passphrase.
Whether you have a laptop or a Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phone, all your wireless devices have a unique MAC address (this has nothing to do with an Apple Mac) just like every computer connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. For an added layer of protection, you can add the MAC addresses of all your devices to your wireless router’s settings so that only the specified devices can connect to your Wi-Fi network.
MAC addresses are hard-coded into your networking equipment, so one address will only let that one device on the network. It is, unfortunately, possible to spoof a MAC address*, but an attacker must first know one of the MAC addresses of the computers that are connected to your Wireless network before he can attempt spoofing.
To enable MAC address filtering, first make a list of all your hardware devices that you want to connect to your wireless network**. Find their MAC addresses, and then add them to the MAC address filtering in your router’s administrative settings. You can find the MAC address for your computers by opening Command Prompt and typing in “ipconfig /all”, which will show your MAC address beside the name “Physical Address”. You can find the MAC addresses of Wireless mobile phones and other portable devices under their network settings, though this will vary for each device.
Step 6. Reduce the Range of the Wireless Signal
If your wireless router has a high range but you are staying in a small studio apartment, you can consider decreasing the signal range by either changing the mode of your router to 802.11g (instead of 802.11n or 802.11b) or using a different wireless channel.
You can also try placing the router under the bed, inside a shoe box, or wrapping a foil around the router antennas so that you can somewhat restrict the direction of signals.
Step 7. Upgrade your Router’s firmware
You should check the manufacturer’s site occasionally to make sure that your router is running the latest firmware. You can find the existing firmware version of your router using the router’s dashboard at 192.168.*.
Connect to your Secure Wireless Network
To conclude, MAC Address filtering with WPA2 (AES) encryption (and a really complex passphrase) is probably the best way to secure your wireless network.
Once you have enabled the various security settings in your wireless router, you need to add the new settings to your computers and other wireless devices so that they all can connect to the Wi-Fi network. You can select to have your computer automatically connect to this network, so you won’t have to enter the SSID, passphrase and other information every time you connect to the Internet.
