Network Security

[?] Subscribe To This Site

Check this out!

Intro to Wireless Networking -- What is an Infrared Wireless LAN?

123inkjets - Save up to 75% on Printer ink!!

Wireless Network Security for the Small Home Wireless System

Wireless network security is important for every computer in your home and for your wireless connections as well. Fortunately securing your wireless network is something that is relatively easy to do. Here are some tips to make sure your wireless network security is as strong as it can be.

Make sure that your wireless router and your network access point are secure. This involves changing the device’s password. The default passwords that come with the networking hardware are often simply the name of the manufacturer or something else that is easily broken. You need to change this password as soon as you get network hardware set up. Make sure you keep the password written down somewhere and not in a computer file!

Network Security Solutions

Try not to broadcast your network’s SSID. The name of the network and the SSID are regularly broadcast by the access point unless you take steps to turn off this function. The reason you want this turned off is because hackers are more likely to try and hack into a secure network when they know that one is nearby. When you turn off the SSID broadcast, your network becomes, essentially, invisible to other wireless cards searching for a connection to tap into.

Computer Network Security Alphabet Soup

Make sure that your network is protected with Wi-Fi Protected Access, or WPA. This is easy to use and gives you better password options as your password will not be limited to numbers and letters but can also include punctuation marks and symbols. Most Windows XP systems have SPA built in as do most wireless operating systems.

If you cannot use WPA, make sure that the network device’s WEP is turned on. While encryption has flaws, it is still better protection than no encryption at all. Make sure that your WEP key is hard to figure out and that you change your key once a week or so (even though this can be annoying).

Make sure that your network system has MAC filtering and that it is turned on. When you use a MAC filter you can limit network to accepting only the computers whose MAC names it recognizes. This can be annoying if you have a lot of computers in your home but it is a good measure of wireless network security.

Keeping Your Home Network Security at Home

Turn down the transmission power on your wireless transmitter. If you have a home network there is no reason to broadcast your wireless signal farther than the walls of your home—it will only let people know that it exists and pose a challenge to people who might want to hack in. While you can’t set your signal to a specific square foot transmission, you can turn it down enough to keep it within the walls of your home—positioning your router or wireless transmitter in the center of your home is another way to make sure that the signal doesn’t reach very far outside your home’s walls.

Wireless Network security is not hard to set up. It can be annoying but it is worth it.

Return to the top of Wireless Network Security for the Small Home Wireless System.

ADD TO YOUR SOCIAL BOOKMARKS: