Wireless Network Security

How to Secure Your Wireless Network

The key to securing a wireless (wifi) network is the router. And surprisingly, all wireless network routers arrive from the factory with no effective security enabled. If you just plug in the router and configure your network, a child can access your wireless network. Sometimes even the routers that are installed by techs from your ISP are left wide open. You must take positive steps to secure the wireless network, or you may leave the door to your computer wide open to invisible intruders. Here are some basic steps that beef up wireless network security significantly:

Change the router's default administrator password. The default (factory supplied) password is blank, "admin" or "password" on many manufacturers' routers. Hackers know that, so they try these first. Lists of default administrator passwords for hundreds of popular wireless routers are readily available online. Read the router's user manual and change the administrator's password to something obscure. Do not use any publicly available word(s) such as family names, street address or Zip code, etc. Hackers are skilled in divining obvious passwords.

Turn on wireless encryption. Encryption scrambles the data transmitted between the router and the devices that use it so that only devices which have the decoding key for the encryption method used can access the wireless network. Even if spies intercept the radio transmissions of encrypted data they cannot make sense of it without the key. Routers ship with several forms of encryption built in; choose the strongest (hardest to break) encryption your router and the devices that connect to it support. When creating an encryption key, use at least a dozen random letters and numbers instead of something short and obvious.

Change the default SSID (Service Set IDentifier). The SSID is the name of your wireless network that shows up in a list of available wireless networks. Knowing the name of your network doesn't help hackers break into it, but a manufacturer's default SSID such as "linksys" or "NetGear" indicates that you're lax about security and worth probing further. You can even set your router to not broadcast its SSID, so your network will be invisible to unsophisticated seekers.

Turn on MAC Address Filtering. A very strong wireless network security technique called MAC Address Filtering is a bit more complicated to set up and manage, but worth the effort if the devices authorized to connect to your wireless network don't change very often. Every digital device has a unique alphanumeric identifier hard-coded into its circuitry: the MAC Address. (Don't be confused here... a MAC address has nothing to do with your operating system, be it Mac OS or Windows.) Wireless routers can detect the MAC addresses of devices that try to connect to them. You can set up a filter list of MAC Addresses and specify "only these MAC addresses are allowed to connect to my network." You can also blacklist specified MAC addresses so that their connection attempts are rejected while others are accepted.

Logging in to the Router

The first step to securing your wireless network is logging into the wifi router. In most cases, you can enter http://192.168.0.1 or http://192.168.1.1 in your web browser to connect to the router. If you don't get a login prompt, you can find your router's address by using the ipconfig command at a Windows command prompt. Look for the "Default Gateway" line, and you'll find the router address there. On a Mac, select System Preferences from the Apple menu, then select Network. Select Ethernet, click Advanced, then click the TCP/IP tab, and the router address is displayed.

Every router is different, so I can't give specific instructions here for modifying the security settings discussed earlier in this article. Consult the manual, do some Googling, or call your ISP's help desk if you need assistance once you're logged into the router.

Wireless network security keeps others in your vicinity from leeching off your WiFi internet connection. You don't want a wifi moocher slowing down your connection by downloading porn or running a file sharing service on the sly. Securing your wireless also keeps hackers out of your network and its attached computers, protecting you from identity theft. It can also prevent cyber-criminals from using your computer as a zombie to launch spam and denial of service attacks. Setting up proper security should be the first thing you do after hooking up a wireless router.

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