Keep unwanted intruders out of your wireless network.

Tips for protecting your wifi network

People for the most part, have gotten use to a network signal being in most places that they go. If you are traveling somewhere, and all of the sudden your network goes out, for the most part you become surprised.

Of course, there are several regions that remain unconnected and without network access, but most populated areas have seen the infiltration of some kind of network for communication. If there are people around, a network connection is all but assured.

With this expectation of network access, we tend to just hop on to whatever network is available. If that means leeching off of someone’s home network then so be it. If you are a person that has a wireless network running through your house, then you might want to think about closing it off to strangers. There are several ways that you can go about accomplishing this.

WEP and WPA

The first way that you can close off your network to an outside presence, is to place an encryption setting on it. Using either WEP or WPA, you can require a password to be used to log onto your network.

This is the preferred way of keeping people from leeching off the internet that you pay for. If you have a choice of what encryption technology to use, go with WPA, it is by far the superior of the two solutions. Experienced people have been able to crack through WEP protection in less than 5 minutes.

WEP should only be used if you have a router or a wireless access card that is a couple of years old and doesn't support WPA. Other than that you should always be using WPA.

Media Access Control Filtering

A second solution, but less desirable than the first one, is to allow only certain MAC address onto your network. MAC stands for Media Access Control. It is the unique address of your network access card.
Do not confuse this with your IP address, they are two different things.

This technique is very effective but can be inconvenient when you have friends over or you buy a new computer. You will have to go into the settings of your router and add a new MAC address to the settings each time.

With the first technique all you have to do is to give your visitor the password.

Firewalls

The first two techniques were used to keep people from logging on to your network. This last one will keep them from penetrating your network through the Internet. To keep that from happening, use a firewall on your network.

Usually your router will have it's own firewall set up but you can have software version set up as well. This will keep people from trying to enter your network through one of the port holes that are available.

These are a couple of ways to keep people from accessing your network without your knowledge. Make sure you have these techniques checked off of your list and it will keep your network relatively safe. If you feel that you'd rather have a professional setup your wireless network, then give us a call at 647-898-3467.

 

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