As many of you know I recently moved. I moved into a townhouse that has about a dozen houses within just a few 100 feet. Within the first few days I had the wireless up and running and started to hook up my laptop to do a little Dad-blogs surfing.

I found about 6 different wireless networks within range and 4 of the 6 were locked down. This is amazing to me. In today’s lawsuit laced society, and software/music piracy rampage I would think people would protect themselves better.

Most people just say brush off no locking it to “I don’t have anything to hide” or “No one in my neighborhood will hack me” even “I don’t care who uses it”. Lets say someone sits in your parking lot or on the street by your house gets on your wireless and downloads illegal programs, pornography, and hacks a few websites while they are at it as well. This will be traced back to YOUR IP address which is in YOUR house which YOU pay for. There are ways to tell if the traffic was indeed from you based on MAC address but even that can be spoofed (duplicated) and blame can be put 100% on you. Fighting this would take time and money which most people would not want to waste either.

I could go more into why you want to lock down your wireless but take it from this nerd that “You just want to do it”. Now.

Here are a few steps you can take to lock down your wireless. If you need any assistance in finding documentation for your particular wireless device or other question feel free to fill out the about page form and let me know.

1. Change the Administrator Password and User name - If nothing else do this so bad guys cant change your settings.
2. Turn on WPA/WEP encryption - WPA is by far better then WEP but WEP is better then nothing so choose which ever is available. Once encryption is turned on even if someone was eavesdropping on your conversations it would be garbled text that would not make sense.
3. Change the Default SSID- Although this really is not a security flaw if a “hacker” sees a default name they will assume that it has not been set up correctly and you may be victim to more attacks.
4. Enable MAC address Filtering - Every network device has a unique number, or MAC, that identifies itself. You can set your wireless to only accept certain MAC addresses from being allowed to connect to your device.
5. Disable SSID broadcast - This turns off the notification to surrounding computers that your wireless is available. To connect you would need to know the SSID.
6. Use Static IP Address - Turn off DHCP and set a fixed IP range on your wireless. Assign each device in your house a specific IP address within that range.  This will help prevent attackers from gaining access by not giving them an IP address automatically.
7. Enable firewalls - Turn on firewalls on the router, and each computer this will prevent unwanted traffic and virus from entering or leaving a computer(if infected).
8. Place Wireless in the Center of the house - Putting your wireless in the middle of the house will prevented unnecessary “leakage” outside your house and will improve your signal throughout the house.
9. Turn off Wireless during extended non-use- Turning off your wireless when not used is the only 100% true way to be secure.

Although there is no way to be 100% safer other then turning off all devices and unplugging them from the wall these steps will surely help you become more secure.

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