7 Easy Steps to Secure Your Wireless Router

By: Andy Jones
Submitted: 2008-03-19 14:59:24
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

When you buy a wireless router it is not secure and its default configuration will allow unwanted users that are in the vicinity of your router to connect to the internet and “steal” your wireless router internet connection. They could also gain access to your PC and steal files and folders of data. Manufacturers leave the configuration “open” so that the user can easily set up the router and get it up and running quickly. However, there is a risk if the router is not secure.

Acessing Your Wireless Router's Configuration

To gain access to your wireless router settings and configuration menu then connect to the router either wirelessly or via a Ethernet cable. Open a web browser and type either: http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.2.1

1) Change Admin password
Most wireless routers ship with a blank password. It is essential that this is changed else a potential hacker could get into your router configuration and lock you out of your own hardware.

2) Change The Network Name (otherwise known as the SSID)
The default network name is usually made up of the name/model of your wireless router. This information gives a head start for a hacker and makes it easier for them to break into your network. Don't rename it to something like your surname or house name as this unnecessarily exposes personal information. Rename it to an alpha-numeric string - this can be up to 32 characters long.

3) Turn off SSID broadcasting
By default, a wireless router's SSID is broadcast so anyone in the vicinity of your wireless router can see that it. SSID broadcasting can be turned off thus making your wireless router virtually invisible.

4) Enabling Encryption
This is switched off by default. There is a choice of WEP, WPA and WPA2. Currently the latest encryption method is WPA2 so use this where possible. Both your wireless router and wireless PC adaptor must be configured to use the same encryption.

5) Mac Address Control
All hardware has a unique MAC address associated with it, including your PC adaptor card. This MAC address can be added to access control list in the wireless router. Only devices added to the router's access control list are allowed to be connected.

6) Update router firmware
It is recommended that the latest router firmware is downloaded from the manufacturer's website and installed in the router. This will hopefully fix any bugs that have been found for your router and also help with any known security flaws in the router itself.

7) Backup settings
Finally, backup all router settings. If you reset the router back to its factory default settings for whatever reason, your configuration can later be easily and quickly restored back into the router.

Andy Jones is a technology expert with a broad range of hardware and software skills. To read more tips and techniques like the ones in this article, go to: http://www.setupwirelessrouter.com

Article source: Expert Articles

Most Recent Articles in Wireless Networks category

  • Network Application Architectures - By: Imran Rashid
    Before diving into software coding, you should have a broad architectural plan for your application. Keep in mind that an application's architecture is distinctly different from the network architecture. From the application developer's perspective, the network architecture is fixed and provides a specific set of services to applications. The application architecture, on the other hand, is designed by the application developer and dictates how the application is structured over the various end systems
  • Networks Under Attack - By: Imran Rashid
    The field of network security is about how the bad guys can attack computer networks and about how we, soon-to-be experts in computer networking, can defend networks against those attacks, or better yet, design new architectures that are immune to such attacks in the first place.
  • Wireless Access - By: Imran Rashid
    Accompanying the current Internet revolution, the wireless revolution is also having a profound impact on the way people work and live. Today, more people in Europe have a mobile phone than a PC or a car. And the wireless trend is continuing with many analysts predicting that wireless (and often mobile) handheld devices -- such as mobile phones and PDAs-will overtake wired computers as the dominant Internet access devices throughout the world. Today, there are two common types of wireless Internet access.
  • Messages, Segments, Datagram's, and Frames - By: Imran Rashid
    The physical path that data takes down a sending end system's protocol stack, up and down the protocol stacks of an intervening link-layer switch and router, and then up the protocol stack at the receiving end system. As we discuss later in this book, routers and link-layer switches are both packet switches.
  • History of Computer Networking and the Internet - By: Imran Rashid
    You should know enough now to impress your family and friends! However, if you really want to be a big hit at the next cocktail party, you should sprinkle your discourse with tidbits about the fascinating history of the Internet.
  • Network Application Architectures - By: Imran Rashid
    Before diving into software coding, you should have a broad architectural plan for your application. Keep in mind that an application's architecture is distinctly different from the network architecture.
  • ISPs and Internet Backbones - By: Imran Rashid
    We saw earlier that end systems (user PCs, PDA's, Web servers, mail servers, and so on) connect into the Internet via an access network. Recall that the access network may be a wired or wireless local area network (for example, in a company, school, or library), a residential cable modem or DSL network, or a residential ISP (for example. AOL or MSN) that is reached via dial-up modem. But connecting end users and content providers into access networks -is only a small piece of solving the puzzle of connecting the hundreds of millions of end-systems and hundred of thousands of networks that make up the Internet.
  • File Transfer Protocol: FTP - By: Imran Rashid
    We have just learned that network processes communicate with each other by sending messages into sockets. But how are these messages structured? What are the meanings of the various fields in the messages.
  • How Do Packets Make Their Way Through Packet-Switched Networks? - By: Imran Rashid
    Earlier we said that a muter takes a packet arriving on one of its attached communication links and forwards that packet on to another of its attached communication links. But how does the router determine the link onto which it should forward the packet? This is actually done in different ways by different types of computer networks we will describe one popular approach, namely. The approach employed by the Internet. In the Internet, each packet traversing the network contains the address of the packet's destination in its header.
  • Upgrading your Network Hardware Infrastructure - By: Darwin Redshield
    Just like you want to learn about a date's likes and dislikes to see if there is potential for long term compatibility, you also need to carefully plan the integration of new and updated network hardware into your older structures.