People have more flexible time due to wireless network. Thanks to the
invention of wireless. People can now work from home while taking care
of their kids or doing house works. No more stress from traffic jam
anymore. Is this great?
Well, there is something you should realize. Working from home while
using a wireless local area network (WLAN) may lead to theft of
sensitive information and hacker or virus infiltration unless proper
measures are taken. As WLANs send information over radio waves, someone
with a receiver in your area could be picking up the transmission, thus
gaining access to your computer. They could load viruses on to your
laptop which could be transferred to the company's network when you go
back to work.
Believe it or not! Up to 75 per cent of WLAN users do not have standard
security features installed, while 20 per cent are left completely open
as default configurations are not secured, but made for the users to
have their network up and running ASAP. It is recommended that wireless
router/access point setup be always done though a wired client.
You can setup your security by follow these steps:
1. Change default administrative password on wireless router/access point to a secured password.
2. Enable at least 128-bit WEP encryption on both card and access
point. Change your WEP keys periodically. If equipment does not support
at least 128-bit WEP encryption, consider replacing it. Although there
are security issues with WEP, it represents minimum level of security,
and it should be enabled.
3. Change the default SSID on your router/access point to a hard to
guess name. Setup your computer device to connect to this SSID by
default.
4. Setup router/access point not to broadcast the SSID. The same SSID
needs to be setup on the client side manually. This feature may not be
available on all equipment.
5. Block anonymous Internet requests or pings. On each computer having
wireless network card, network connection properties should be
configured to allow connection to Access Point Networks Only. Computer
to Computer (peer to peer) Connection should not be allowed.
Enable MAC filtering. Deny association to wireless network for
unspecified MAC addresses. Mac or Physical addresses are available
through your computer device network connection setup and they are
physically written on network cards. When adding new wireless cards /
computer to the network, their MAC addresses should be registered with
the router /access point. Network router should have firewall features
enabled and demilitarized zone (DMZ) feature disabled.
All computers should have a properly configured personal firewall in
addition to a hardware firewall. You should also update router/access
point firmware when new versions become available. Locating
router/access point away from strangers is also helpful so they cannot
reset the router/access point to default settings. You can even try to
locate router/access point in the middle of the building rather than
near windows to limit signal coverage outside the building.
There is no guarantee of a full protection of your wireless network,
but following these suggested tips can definitely lessen your risk of
exposing to attackers aiming at insecure networks.
