how do i secure my wireless netowrk connection?

Answer 1

There is an excellent article that describes how to "secure' your wireless connection using WPA security. That is one of the built in security protocols of your wireless router.

Take a look at it, it has step by step instructions and screenshots;

http://www.goitexpert.com/en/index.cfm/2007/2/9/Configure-Your-Wireless-Router-to-use-WPA

The procedure will be slightly different depending on the router you have (Linksys, Dlink etc.) but the concepts and the names are the same.

Answer 2

you need to enable encryption on your router. Perform these steps FROM A COMPUTER WHICH IS HARDWIRED TO THE ROUTER

1. in a web address field type the following "192.168.1.1"
2. A password dialog will appear. Leave the user field blank. In the password field, enter "admin"
3. The Browser should no display the "Linksys" settings page. The page looks like a normal web page.
4. Click the "Wireless" tab. When you do this, sub tabs should appear beneath the "Wireless tab". One of them should say "security" or "wireless security". hit that sub-tab.
5. A page will apear where you can enter encryption settings for your router. There should be a field where you can select encryption settings. If your router is not encrypted, it should say "disabled." In the pull-down menu, select WEP. This is a simple yet effective encryption scheme. After WEP is selected, a new pull down menu should appear, along with 4 "KEY" fields - 1, 2, 3, and 4, a "phrase" field and a "Generate" button. In the new pull-down field, select 64 (10) encryption. In the "phrase" field, type in any textual phrase (such as your pet's name, or anything you desire). After this, hit the generate key, and copy down the 4 keys which appear in the "KEY" fields. Then, hit the "Save Changes" button.

Congrats!! you now have an encrypted network. At this point, any of your computers which connect wirelessly through your router will cease to work with the router because they do not yet know the proper KEY. To "teach" your computer the "proper key", perform the following steps from each of your computers which connect wirelessly.

1. double-click the little wireless computer icon which should appear at the bottom right hand portion of your screen.
2. click "View Wireless Networks". At this point, your computer will search for all wireless routers (networks) in range. One of these will be yours. Yours will probably say "Linksys" or something similar.
3. Select your network, and then click the "advanced settings tab" to the left. select your network router, make sure the mode is "open", select WEP encryption, and then enter KEY #1. Once this is done, connect to the router, and everything should work fine.

Answer 3

Securing your home wireless network 101:
Summary at bottom...

To start off, unless your wireless equipment is brand new, go to the website (Linksys, Netgear, etc) and go to their support or downloads section and get the most recent version of firmware for your wireless router or access point, and install it per the vendor's instructions.

Next, change the default password on your wireless router. Don't make it anything obvious like admin. Next, turn on encryption. At least use WEP for minimal protection but the best is to use WiFi Protected Access, WPA or WPA2 PSK (Pre Shared Key) mode for home use. WEP can be broken easily by someone who knows how and has the right tools. Select a decent WPA passphrase that has at least a combination of letters and numbers, the longer the better, up to 63 characters.

Everyone always says "WEP is no good, it's too easy to crack" and that's true, but I usually say, "Oh, really? Have you done it?" just to be a wise-guy, 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 (all freeware by the way) and knowledge to break your key. So use WPA PSK, it's just as easy to configure as WEP. If you do use WEP (maybe if you have older stuff with no WPA or WPA2 support) then at least change your WEP key occasionally. By the way, selecting 128 bit versus 40 bit WEP will NOT really make it any more secure.

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 your PCs to get the 48-bit (12 Hex digits) MAC/Physical hardware address, and then put that MAC address into your router's MAC filter 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 be fooled into thinking that turning off SSID broadcast will make your 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.

One last thing, even though a home router (wireless or not) can act as a hardware firewall, still absolutely run network security software on your end machines, such as McAfee security center for example. Or even freeware is fine, AVG plus ZoneAlarm plus AdAware/SpyBot, etc. Just make sure you have a software antivirus and firewall at minimum, preferably something other than the built in firewall in WinXP.

So in summary:
1. Update to newest firmware
2. Change default password on router
3. Configure WPA PSK with a good passphrase
4. Use MAC address filtering
5. Change SSID from default and do not broadcast it
6. Disable any type of remote administration
7. Enable any built-in firewall features
8. Block or filter unknown external (WAN) requests
9. Read the manual for your product for other security features.
10. Don't forget end host protection software.

Answer 4

The exact detail depends on your router but generally you need to find its WEP (encryption) code. To get this please read the manual on how to set it up (it may be on-line). Some routers have a security code on a label on the case.
Once you have this then you can enable security. You'll need to use the code to enable your computer to connect to the router.

One of the other answerers goes into more detail.

Answer 5

type in your web address 192.168.1.0, then type admin for user name and password for the password, then go to wireless and put a password!!!

Answer 6

you can set a 'lock' on it with a secure number