How do I limit my home router so that only my computers have internet access?

Question

I have a laptop and a desktop computer and I have a wireless router in my house. I think anyone who lives in the vicinity can jump on to my internet. I know its not safe. How do I close it out so that only my laptop and my office computer get internet access? Will it be safe from hackers after that? Please give me step by step instructions as I am a computer illiterate! Thanks!

Answer 1

There are a number of things you can do to secure your wireless connection. I strongly recommend you read PC World Magazine's article on how to secure your network:

"Step-By-Step: How to Build a Safe, Secure Network" -- written by Stan Miastkowski, pcworld.com (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,115066-page,4/article.html#)

Once you have read the article, you need to access your routers setup program. Your router mostly like came with an installation CD. If you haven't already done so, install the installation software on to your hard drive. Next, run the program and go through each setting one by one. First, you need to change the default user id and password for your router. This is very important because only someone with the correct user id and password can change the settings on the router. The default user ids and passwords for many popular routers are publicly available. For example, for NetGear the default user id is "admin" and the password is "password." So, if you don't change the default id and password then anyone who knows which brand of router you are using can get in to your router.

Next. you want to switch on the encryption on your router. Most modern routers use WPA or WPA-2 encryption which is much better than WEP, the older encryption scheme. Since the router is broadcasting in to the air, anyone with a receiver can pickup the signal. By encrypting your transmission, people can still pickup your wireless signal but it would look like gibberish.

You need to stop broadcasting SSID. All routers broadcast a signal identifying itself. By not transmitting your SSID, it is harder for anyone to detect the presence of your router.

Finally, you turn on MAC filtering. Each computer has an unique MAC address. Thinks of it as a mailing address for your computer. You can restrict which MAC addresses can access your network. Therefore, you can lock out all computers which do not belong to you. Of course, you need to know your own MAC address. You can find it by using the command prompt. (read the article for more details).

Answer 2

Actually, when you have an "open" wireless hotspot, a hacker would still need to do some work to find your computer and then break into it. Most people who access open hotspots are just trying to get out to the internet. The concern would be if they were downloading massive files and eating up all your connection bandwidth. (And some providers are now starting to charge a bandwidth fee.)

You will need to check with the specifics of your router to figure out how to do these things. (The company websites usually have the manuals online, if you don't have yours handy.)

Some steps
1. Give your wireless router a unique name and set a password for the administrator. (Many people leave their routers on default, so hackers could take over your connection.)
2. Turn off the broadcast flag of your router, so it doesn't show up in the list of wireless networks when your neighbors do a scan.
3. Turn of WEP and set the encryption password. You will also need to set this password on any laptop that connects to this router.

Answer 3

Use encryption. WEP is standard but easily hacked. WPA is nice, but you have to have windows xp sp2 to use it.

Enable the encryption after you've created the keys, then put the keys on the computers.

Also, you can filter by MAC address. To find your mac address, go to start > run > cmd
type in ipconfig /all

it should be listed as your "physical address", add both computer's mac address to the router, and you're done. NOTE: Netgear has that option, the two linksys routers that I have do not have mac address filtering. I know that 2wire modems do not have mac address filtering either.

Simply enabling WEP should be enough for you, but if you have the time and the patience...

Answer 4

in your instruction manual for your router there will be a setting to set up wep or wpa encryption, set it up and write the encryption key down.

Once you set it up when you try and access the internet from one of your other pcs it will look for the security key you wrote down, once entered it should automatically connect from now on and your neighbours wont be able to access it.

There is no benefit to setting up a password it doesnt protect the internet connection it only protects the routers settings which have to be accessed hardwired by ethernet anyway.

Answer 5

Wireless routers have something called WEP-Keys (Web Encryption Protocol Keys) these allow people who know the key to use your network while blocking others from using it. This is setup through the routers web interface. Accessing this is different depending on the router you have. Please update the question with the type of router you have to allow step by step instruction of the setup. Thanks~!

Answer 6

the first answer is right in the fact that you can restrict a pc through the router for time, websights and services( such as IM, gaming,etc.). Just log into the router and don't let your brother know your user and password.

Answer 7

You can put a password on the connection so that only people who know the password can connect. How you do that depends on your router's manufacturer. If you don't have the manual (which should tell you how to do this), look up the router manufacturer's home page, and there should be information there. Good luck!

Answer 8

what i did was i went to the company who made my routers website and looked around a little..

when i did that i found it had a small program on the home page i could download that would walk me through the steps.. i have a linksys

and then i just ran the program.. only takes about 5 minutes.. you have to type in a few things and then you have to plug in the router to your computer to verify that its your connection

but if you kept the installation disk for your router, it should be on there

Answer 9

Setup WEP security, go to your wirless router manufacturer's Web site and follow the instructions. You need to enter your Default Gatway (IP address) in you Web broswer's address bar

Answer 10

Implement MAC addressing filtering on your wireless access point, and tell it to only allow the MAC addresses of your desktop and laptop to get on. It's kind of like the velvet rope at a fancy nightclub: if your name's not on the list, you're not getting in!