Wi-Fi Security

Hackers and network sniffers are always looking out for vulnerable networks to run their own small and big ploys. Here are four simple ways that can help secure your enterprise Wi-Fi network to a large extent.

Encrypt your wireless
Use the WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy) Key to ensure your wireless network traffic is secure. Although it is not 100% secure, but it is still better than leaving the network open. A more secure method would be to use a router with WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) or EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) feature. These encryption protocols are difficult to break.

Change router password
Always change your router password. Most wireless router settings are configurable from a web page. Thus, if a hacker can log on to your network - and if you have left it on default factory settings - he can access this site. Now if your router configuration pane is accessed with the default password, like 'admin', the hacker can easily hijack your router and make it unusable for others.

Change default SSID setting
The SSID (Service Set IDentifier) is a name assigned to a wireless network. The default SSID name is usually set to the name of the company that made the wireless network equipment, for example ‘Linksys’ or ‘SMC’. Not changing the SSID setting means easy work for the hacker. When you have changed the SSID setting, do not broadcast this on the network.

Use MAC address filtering
The Media Access Control or MAC address is a unique hardware identifier found on network cards. You can make the router accessible only to the hardware whose MAC address is listed beforehand.