Protect your Wi-Fi connection

How do you keep your Wi-Fi connection safe from hackers and casual snoopers?

Top five tips

1 – Always use encryption and try to avoid WEP wherever possible. Stick to WPA2 encryption as WEP is crackable in a matter of minutes.

WPA2 is still currently considered secure, as long as you use a complex key (PSK) – use upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters.

2 – Make sure you change the default SSID and passwords on your Wireless Access Point or Router.

3 – Do not broadcast your SSID. This does not make you invisible from committed hackers, but it does help avoid casual snoopers.

4 – Try not to name your network after anything relating to your company name or address, giving away any kind of unnecessary information about which network belongs to. You will only aid those seeking to penetrate it.

5 – If you are running a smaller network, consider implementing MAC address filtering on the router or access point in order to restrict network access only to trusted devices. Again this is not “unhackable” but it will deter al but the most dedicated.