How do I secure a wireless network?

Question

Good morning,

How do I secure my private home connection? I believe there are other people on my street using my wireless connection, because my internet browsing has become severoely limited... even with a cable connection. What can I do about this? How do I establish a secure network that cannot be accessed on the periphery of my house?

Of the two local wireless connections that I can access, one is my neighbors and the other is my own; it says that mine is an unsecured wireless network whereas my neighbors, across the street, have a secure connection.

Thanks,

Av

Answer 1

Turn on the security in your wireless router's setup. Either find the setup CD or point your browser to the routers IP address, i.e. http://192.168.1.1

(In most cases, that's what Linksys routers are set to)

You can use either WEP or WPA (which is better if your router happens to support it) Once that's enabled, anyone attempting to access your network would need to know the correct security key. You can also turn off broadcasting of your network's name (called SSID) so that people nearby browsing for networks won't see yours listed.

It's also possible to further restrict access by only allowing specifc MAC addresses to connect, but that's something that requires a little more familiarity with network setup, and it's not as convenient if you have guests (or new computers) and want to grant them access. If you've just enabled a security key, you can just tell them. If using MAC filtering. YOU have to go into your router's setup program and add the MAC address to the list every time you want to allow another machine to connect.

Answer 2

you need to setup wep, mac address filtering, and turn off your broadcasting. WEP will encrypt the data traveling back and forth from your computer, MAC filtering allows you to enter a unique number that is only associated to your network card(every network card has one like a serial #)and then the router only lets the computers in whos mac address is in the list, and then another thing to do is turn off the broadcasting that way no one in the neighborhood sees your access point, its hidden but your computer will work fine. These are a few things you can do to help protect yourself

Answer 3

Go into the configuration utility for your WiFi router and enable WPA. (Not WEP it's too easily cracked) Take the key that you created in the router configuration and enter into configuration programs for each of the computers that connect to your network wirelessly.

Answer 4

you need to access your router through a web browser best bet is to call the reps at D-Link and they can take you through it step by step or at least should but not to sure I know Linksys will as this is the router I have P.S. in order to access your router you will have to have a hard cable going to it you can't do it wirelessly and then once it's secure you can wirelessly use it with whichever computer or component