Wireless networks (both personal and business) are becoming more and more prevalent. No more running wires through floors, walls and ceilings at great expense. Instead, you set up your wireless base station and, as long as the signal is strong enough, you have new network connections in all directions.
So what can go wrong if you set up a wireless network?
Well, you may have just opened your network and your files to anyone with a wireless network card. Unless you specifically control access to your wireless network, anyone within range can use it.
So what are you to do?
At a minimum, you should do 2 things:
- Password-protect your network, and
- Encrypt the data being broadcast over your network.
Why do you need to go to all that trouble?
Password protection controls entry into your network. Only people who know the name of the network (SSID) and the network password can get on. If they can’t get on to the network, they can’t use and/or explore the network and your data.
Encryption protects you from electronic “Peeping Toms”. Hackers don’t need to enter your network with a password to get information from it. Remember, a wireless network is like a small radio station. The data is being broadcast from the base station and anyone with a receiver can “hear” it. With the right hardware, the information being broadcast (bank account numbers, passwords, etc.) can be received, stored and used by a hacker.
The steps to setting up encryption are slightly different for each manufacturer of Wi-Fi equipment. Just look for terms like ‘encryption’, ‘WPA’ or ‘WEP’ in their documentation and follow the instructions. Once it is set up, encryption scrambles the content of your wireless transmissions. It is automatically converted to usable characters at each end of the transmission, but only for those who know the right password.
Remember to make the password to your network a “strong” one! See my blog entry (Passwords (2) – Make them strong!) if you don’t know what this means or don’t know how to do it.
