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10 steps to a secure wireless network
These days you can find wireless networks or access point almost anywhere. And almost anywhere you can also find wireless network with no or very poor security. Now I ask, is your wireless network secure enough?
Here is some tips and basic knowledge on how to secure your wireless network.
1. Secure your router/access points administration page.
Most routers and access points has an administration page, they are usually accessed via the http protocol, which means you can type in something like 192.168.1.1 and you can get to it.
The point here is to set up a password so only you can get to the administration page.
2. Set broadcast SSID to off
As standard most routers do automatically broadcast the network SSID out so anyone can find and see that you have a wireless access point, and you just need to define the SSID in your network connection after.
3. Filter MAC address
MAC addresses are a unique serial number for your network adapter, so what you do is to set up only access for specific MAC addresses in your router or access point.
4. WEP encryption
Well this is the most important stage in wireless network security, WEP is the old encryption method, and quite easy to crack with the right equipment, cause this encryption is limited to using 0-9 and letters A-F.
5. WPA, WPA2 encryption
WPA has a wider variation in encryption, the newest and best way is with the WPA2, (I have not tried it yet though, because my router does not support it).
But if you dont know anything about encryption and think it is quite complicated, at least you will need to set up the WEP encryption as the minimum.
6. Make sure all ports are closed.
When speaking of network every connection goes through different ports, these ports will usually be closed or watched by a firewall in the router, make sure this is set to on.
7. Monitor network activity
You can get a lot of different software to monitor your system network activity, this may catch someone if they get pass your router security.
8. You an internal firewall
Even though it says on your box that your router has a firewall integrated, you should always use a firewall software of some kind, such as Zonealarm (free).
In your software firewall also set up the ip addresses that should be allowed into your system.
9. Do not auto connect at startup
Many people have problems with this, where their computer just connects to the best and easiest wireless network available, even though it might not be yours.
10. Turn off your router if not in use.
If you go on vacation for a longer period, turn your wireless network off if possible.
Even though you might not be able to do all these steps, do as many as possible then you are as save as you can be, but never 100 percent.