How do you make a wireless network secure?

Question

Using BT BVoyager

Answer 1

First, change the default password on your wireless router. Next, turn on encryption. At least use WEP for minimal protection but the best is to use WiFi Protected Access, WPA/WPA2 PSK (Pre Shared Key) mode for home use. WEP can be broken easily by someone who knows how and has the right tools.

Everyone always says "WEP is no good, it's too easy to crack" and I usually say, "Oh, really? Have you done it?" and 99% of the time the answer is no. Because it's NOT easy for the average home user. I have done it and I like to say that WEP keeps your honest neighbors honest. But it will not hold back someone who has the right tools and knowledge to break your key. So use WPA PSK, it's no more difficult to configure than WEP. If you do use WEP (maybe you have an older AP with no WPA support) then at least change your WEP key occasionally.

Also consider using MAC address filtering, so you can decide ahead of time which machines are allowed on your network. You do an "ipconfig /all" for example on one of your PCs to get the MAC/Hardware address, and then put the MAC address into your router's MAC list. Again, there are ways to defeat this with MAC spoofing, etc, but not without some effort and not likely with your average users/neighbors.

Also use other security features built into your product like stateful packet inspection (SPI) firewalls, etc. Check the manual or just click thru the config screens to see what's there.

Finally, don't let anyone fool you into thinking that turning off SSID broadcast will make you network secure, it will not. That only supresses the SSID in the beacon messages and is not meant to be a security feature, it's more to prevent accidental associations. Still, it is a "best/common practice" to change your SSID to something other than the default and turn off SSID broadcast.

So in summary:
1. Change default password on router
2. Configure WPA PSK
3. Use MAC address filtering
4. Change SSID from default and do not broadcast it
5. Disable any type of remote administration
6. Enable any built-in firewall features
7. Block unknown external (WAN) requests
8. Read the manual for your product for other security features.

Answer 2

Most wireless routers now have a setup wizard to help with things like this. But basically you connect to the router setup page. Under the security section you have 3 choices. None,WEP and WPA.

WEP requires a hex code of at least 10 characters consisting of characters 0 - 10 and A - F this can get confusing because you can't make many sensible words from these characters. WPA/PSK allows you to use more standard passwords using any standard characters. but WPA sometimes needs you to have Windows XP service pack 2 installed so older systems don't always support it. WPA is normally the easiest to use!

Answer 3

you will need to setup a wep 128bit security , it should be in the software that came with the modem , as its built into windows

go to the modem setup and find the security section , create a sentence and save it ,

now go to the laptop / PC and open the wireless software , there should be a security section , and type in the same sentence and save it , not to sure on the BT Voyager software but it should be there

Answer 4

i agree hide ssid so you aren't broadcasting to your neighbors but also use wep encryption it will generate a key you have to enter into your system so they can comunicate( it scrambles the data being transmitted) and also set the mac address filtering. enter the mac address of your network card into the router list and the router will only connect to the pc's that have there mac addresses in the list. this will eliminate about 99% of the population from bothering you

Answer 5

so uve heard wep is crap right...
you need to have an encrypted vpn unfortunately...

with what you have, you would need another computer hardwired into the router, to then share out its connection wirelessly...
you need a computer, to setup the vpn..

Answer 6

If your not techincally minded the easiest thing to do is to rename and hide the SSID