Secure Yourself
By Jon Kenton
The advent of wireless home networks has created a booming industry, providing great freedom and flexibility for us all. Unfortunately, it has also spawned a new breed of pests: piggybackers who take advantage of your unsecured network and use your broadband service for free. Worse, if you have shared storage and an open network, they can get to that, too. And wireless has made life even easier for the worst kind of pest—hackers. If your network is left unsecured, they can easily gain access and wreak untold havoc on all your PCs and servers. But don’t fret—there are some basic steps that you can take to secure yourself.
1. Site your router as close to the center of your home as possible. This will minimize signal leakage outside your walls. This is often difficult, as you must place it near wherever the broadband connection enters your home. Also, most apartments are much smaller than the transmission capability of a router. You would still probably leak to all the other apartments around you.
2. Change the default password. Every wireless router has an administration function that allows you to set it up and change its configuration. The defaults for all routers are widely known, so as soon as you install your router, change the password!
3. Change the SSID and then hide it. When your PC goes searching for a network, it is looking for a network name or SSID. Out of the box, it will be set to the same name as for everyone else who bought the same router. The first thing to do is to change it to a unique name you can remember. Don’t use something generic like “office”—be a little more creative. Once you have done this, set your router to not broadcast the SSID. This will prevent anybody from seeing it. You can still enter it manually on your laptop, as you know the name. Once you have set the Remember Network setting, you won’t need to do it again. This should prevent most piggybackers, but won’t stop hackers.
4. Enable MAC filtering. Each PC’s network adaptor has a unique identifier known as a MAC address. You can set your router to work only with PCs whose MAC addresses you have identified.
5. Turn on Encryption. This essentially creates a code that only your router and PCs know how to decode. There are two common forms: WEP and WPA. WEP is better than using nothing, but serious hackers have figured out how to break this coding scheme. WPA or WPA2 is the strongest encryption available today. The issue is that not all PCs and routers have all encryption schemes, so pick whichever one all the devices on your network will support. They all work in a similar way. You pick a key, which is a string of letters and numbers much like a password. You enter this into each device’s encryption configuration, and then they all know the key to unlock the code so they can communicate. Change the keys periodically.
If you take the above steps, you will have made yourself as secure as you can against wireless intruders. Would you leave the door to your home wide open? I doubt it! So, why leave your wireless network wide open?