How to Secure Your Wireless Router - Computers - Security

Just about everyone seems to have at least one wireless router in their home today. Typically, a wireless router was only used if you had a laptop computer with a wireless card. Today, even those without laptops seem to have wireless routers in their home. If you happen to have your desktop set up in a different room from the internet connection you can simply purchase a wireless router and a USB wireless transmitter for your desktop to be able to communicate with it. Due to the overwhelming presence of these devices and the fact that if they are not properly secured that you could be the victim of identity theft or bandwidth theft, it's imperative that you learn to properly secure your wireless router.

A router simply passes data packets from your local network to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), thus acting as a gateway from your household to anywhere on the internet. Wireless routers are so quick and easy to set up that anyone can do it nowadays. Sadly, very little emphasis seems to be paid to security during the initial setup. Protect yourself and your information with these three steps:

First, always set a password on your device. A good password needs to be at least eight characters in length, using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. Doing this will prevent unauthorized access to the router.

Next, always make sure that access via the network to the admin panel has been disabled. By doing this you will force any changes to your setup, including a password change, to be restricted to the computer directly connected to the device. Put another way, if you want to make changes to the device you have to be sitting in front of it and not somewhere else.

Finally, I always recommend turning off the SSID broadcast. What this means is if you don't know the name to your wireless network, you can't get on it, even if you know the password. This way your network won't show up when someone is running a scan looking for a network to get onto or possibly hack into. No name, no access. Along these lines, make sure you pick a good network name and don't use the default given to it. Perhaps you remember hearing about a well-known internet search company that decided to map everyone's wireless networks when taking photos for their 'Street View' feature? Not broadcasting the SSID, as it's known, would have protected your privacy in this case.

Using these three simple steps will prevent almost all possibility of unwanted access to your wireless network. Just remember to check for the occasional firmware update from your wireless router company's site. You can find a check-for-update link within your router's control panel.

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