By Steven O Smith

Thanks to wireless routers, setting up a home or small business network is easier than ever. No running cables, no drilling through walls, just plug in, configure, and go. However, it's also easier than ever to hack into someone's network, thanks to wireless routers.

If, when setting up your router, you didn't change the administrator name and password, or if you're still broadcasting your SSID, (or if you don't understand what all this means) then it's possible someone else might leach onto your network and leverage your broadband connection for their own nefarious means.

So, let's take a minute and look at various ways you can "lock down" your wireless internet connection and assure that the only people able to access it are the ones you specifically allow.

First of all, go to your router's configuration screen. This is done through an internet browser. Go ahead and open your favorite internet browser. In the address bar, type the home address for your router. Most routers use either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 for their default address. Your router's instruction manual will tell you that address. When you enter the correct address, you'll see a user name/password screen. Enter the correct values here and you'll be at the configuration screen. The following steps will not be specific to your router, as each manufacturer will have different layouts for their controls. Instead, this guide will tell you general steps - refer to your instruction manual for specifics. 

1. Change the administrator name and password. There will be a tab or section labeled "Administrator", or something similar. In that section you will be able to change the password and, possibly, the administrator name. (Some routers don't let you specify a name, just a password.) For the name, do not use Administrator, Admin or your name. Instead, use something more unique. Is your house blue? Then how about "bluehouse"? Or maybe "homsweethom"? You get the idea - something hard for the bad guys to guess. For the password, again use something hard to guess. Never use "1234" or "pass". Use a secure password. Something that combines upper and lower case letters, numbers and non-alpha-numeric characters. Something like "@miCKy573mOusE".
2. Don't broadcast the network name. In the Wireless section or tab, there will be an option to broadcast the network name, or SSID. This means your router sends out the network name to make it easier to detect and connect to it. Well, if the bad guys can't see your network, it'll be harder to leach onto it. Make sure the option to broadcast the name is turned off.
3. Use a security type. In the Wireless Security section, you have the option to set the security type. Never select None or Disabled. This would leave your wireless signal wide open for anyone to use. If you have WPA as an option, use that, or at the very least, select WEP security.
4. Use a DNS filter. There will be a section where you can exclude all computers except those with certain DNS values. The DNS value is a string of characters generated by the computer's network adapter. This string is unique to every computer. So by entering just your family's DNS strings, you'll be allowing those computers access, but preventing access from everyone else. To find a computer's DNS string, click on Start, then type CMD and press Enter. (For XP click Start, then Run, and then type CMD and press Enter.) In the black command window, type "ipconfig -all" (without the quotes) and press Enter. In the section that describes your wireless adapter, you'll see a line showing the physical address. That's the DNS string.
5. Do not allow wireless configuration of the router. There may be a checkbox to allow wireless configuration of the router. When this option is turned off, only a computer that is connected to the router via a LAN cable will be able to make changes to the configuration. This will prevent anyone from making changes unless they're physically plugged into your network.

If you implement all of these steps, you can rest assured that only you and the people you specifically authorize will access your wireless connection. There will be no way the bad guys will be able to get into it.

Two more things: If you've changed the network name, encryption type, or pass phrase, you'll probably have to re-enter the security key before reconnecting any computers to the wireless network. Which brings us to the second thing...

After setting all of the values above take a moment to write them in a Notepad document and then print it out and put it someplace safe. That way if you need to connect another computer to the wireless network, you have values easily accessible. Here's an example of the values to save:

Wireless address: 192.168.1.0 
Administrator Name: BlueHouse 
Password: #$thISISmypAss@ 
SSID: OurNetwork 
Security Key: 3VT8dXqj5+-z9BSVAWW7

With over 20 years industry experience, Steven O Smith is the owner of The Computer Psychic, providing affordable on-site computer repair to residences and business in the Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR area. Visit http://www.thecomputerpsychic.com for more valuable information and free software.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_O_Smith

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