Wireless Network Security

With the wide spread of Wireless Broadband due to the massive increase in Broadband connection suppliers the need for securing came out so people around you (mostly your home neighbors) don’t use your paid connection and thus steal your money and slowing your own connection and maybe subject you to data loss or security vulnerabilities as well. Securing your wireless LAN isn’t costly and mostly free to do with reading this article where i’m offering some tips you can do to protect your wireless network:- 1- Changing default router passwords. Changing the default administrator and user passwords for your router access is a must to prevent unauthorized access since the default passwords are well known and there are hundred lists of them on the internet already. We don’t want strangers using our own connection, do we? 2- Disable remote administration access. Most of wireless LAN routers have the ability to be administrated remotely through the internet so you can control your home router from work or any place but although this is a cool feature for some, it is considered a weak point as well and it’s recommended to disable it although it should be disabled by default. If you really need this feature enabled then it’s better getting a router that has an option to assign single ip address to gain remote access to the router so you make sure you are the only person controlling your own router. 3- Enabling MAC address filtering. MAC address is a unique key given to every PC into a network to identify it and you can use this to specify the PCs that will gain access to your network. Using this security method isn’t easy to configure so you can hire a technician to do it for you but it worth it. 4- Reducing signal power. Lowering the power of your signal will limit the access to computers near your transmitter which will be mostly your own PCs inside your home. Note that isn’t not easy to fine tune this to meet your needs but you have to try it and also note that this feature isn’t supported in all hardware nodes. 5- Using WPA encryption. With the ease of breaking WEP (Wired Equivalency Privacy) encryption that makes beginners be able to break into your Wireless LAN a new encryption method came out which is WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and it’s much easier to use than the old WEP encryption and it gives more powerful protection as well. you will find support for this encryption method in Windows XP SP2 and a new version of this encryption method WPA2 is now supported by the new hardwares. Now it’s your call to start using those tips and save your money paid on the wireless connection and gain better security to protect your private data from sneaking persons with unauthorized access.