Wireless Security ??

Question

I have finally signed up for broadband and gone for wireless router. My PC ( Dell 4600 ) does NOT have wireless connectivity so I am purchasing Netgear USB Adapter. How do I make my wireless network SECURE so that neighbours etc cannot access this ?

Answer 1

First off, change your SSID from "Netgear" to something less revealing like "14156sa" or some other nonsensical thing you can remember. No need for anyone to know what kind of router it is. Why help them?

Next you are going to want to create a WPA passphrase. Use WPA TKIP as the type of WPA. There are others. You could use something you can remember, like a line or two of the Declaration of Independence or a medium size phrase from Shakespeare. Whatever you like. When you first connect with this router, you will be prompted to give the passphrase. Once you have established that connection, the client will store the key. The Passphrase breaks out to a hexidecimal string.

Finally, you can limit which network cards can connect with a MAC Address. It is a hexidecimal number that you can get from going to a command prompt and typing "ipconfg /all" Each network card has a different address.

This may sound like a lot, but the harder you make it to get in, the quicker the hacker will move on so as to attack weaker prey.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Follow these steps as explained at :
http://www.comcast.com/Customers/FAQ/FaqDetails.ashx?Id=2579

1. Download the latest firmware for your device.
2. Change the administrator password.
3. Change your SSID and turn off SSID Broadcasting
4. Enable WEP
5. Limit access by MAC addresses

*****QUOTE from "rongee_59" answer to same question :

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Are you trying to access the address (http://192.168.2.1) through a wireless computer or through a computer that's hardwired to the router? Most routers will only allow you to access the admin/settings page through a hardwired computer unless you've gone into the admin page previously and turned on the setting to allow wireless connection to the admin page, so try with a computer that's hardwired to the router with a network cable.

Once you get to the admin page, you'll have to enter a user ID and password (or maybe just a password). By default (meaning, if no one went in previously and changed anything), the user ID is admin and the password is blank (if there's no field for a User ID, then just click the Submit button with an empty password).

Things you want to set:

1) Enable WPA encryption, it is more secure than WEP (although certain older Belkin units only support WEP). You'll have to enter a character string as the WPA key.

2) Change the SSID, and, if present as an option, deselect the option to broadcast your SSID. That way, your neighbors won't be able to tell that you're even running a network.

3) If you really want to be secure, you can enable MAC address filtering, but it's usually a pain if you have guests or friends who bring their laptops over and want to use your network. It requires you to enter the MAC address of the network adapters of those machines who you want to grant access to. Not a big deal if you're just going to use your own computers, just a few minutes to set up.

After you're done, you'll have to change the connection properties of each of your computers to access the router using its new SSID and WPA encryption key. Since you've stopped broadcasting of the SSID from the router, you'll have to manually add the router's new SSID to the connection properties.

*****UNQUOTE

regards,
Philip T

Answer 3

Many wireless networks are automatically set up so that someone with a wireless card could come by your house--or live next door--and access your home network and the Internet using your connection. To ensure that your data is safe and your network bandwidth isn't compromised from the outside, you can do a couple of simple things. First, make sure your wireless access point isn't broadcasting its service set identifier (SSID), which will prevent most cards from even finding your network. Then, harden your network from the outside by hard-coding the Media Access Control (MAC) addresses of your wireless cards into the management software for your access point, so that only your machines can use the network. Be sure to use 128-bit encryption, if possible, and if you're using a bridged network, with wireless and wired components, consider keeping them separate so that machines on the wireless network can't access resources on the wired one. Also, be sure that you've got the latest firmware update for your wireless access point; many companies, such as Apple, Linksys, and others, have shipped crucial security updates for their hardware.

Answer 4

Give Keith the 10points. Encryption is the most important step to securing your wireless network. You should also change your SSID from the manufacturer's default, so that people won't know whatt router you are using, set a new password on your router and then set up an access list of users by MAC addressess.

Answer 5

You should log in to the router with the instructions provided with your router. (only keep on the wirless if you need it). For protection use a WEP key the higher the number the better, yet you have to use one that is compatible with all wireless devices that you will use on the network. Perhaps something that is uneeded is to use a MAC address filter (filters the machine address of the computers that can connect) to get on windows go start> run type cmd and push enter. type ipconfig /all then you can find ur physical address for wireless adaptor. You can also consider turnning off wirless brodcast (you will have to manualy join network (won't auto detect networks).

Answer 6

use WPSK 2 nothing else use MAC filtering turn of UPnP only allow those IP address that you know are the systems in your home/ on your network , Pc's wii, 360 etc use a combination of numbers letters lower and uper case you can get a key gen online you will then need to add the KEY to all the systems on your network so right it down asign a PASWORD and a USERNAME to the router DON NOT use the default settings this is just the start goolge router security for more configurations x

Answer 7

Out of the box, all wireless routers operate in non-secure mode. So you must enable it. Usually, this is done by physically connecting from your wired port to the router's wired port with an Ethernet cable, bringing up the router's web server (this is how you usually access its settings), then select one of the secure encrypted modes.

Answer 8

Set encryption and set a network key (WEP, WPA, etc..) in the routers settings..