How can you really “lock the door” against hackers who want to enter your wireless network? Make it so that only certain computers can sign on.
The exact details may vary depending on the wireless router or base station that you use. One of the base stations that we use at my job is a Linksys unit. By going to its web-based administration screen, I can enter a section called “Wireless MAC filter”.
Note: Every network hardware device (both wired and wireless) has a MAC (Media Access Control) address. It is akin to a social security number for the network card. It uniquely identifies the exact card in your PC. (If you want to get deeper into the information about MAC addresses, see http://whatismyipaddress.com/staticpages/index.php/what-is-a-mac-address ).
Locate the MAC address of the wireless card that will communicate with your network and enter that address (it is in a 00:00:00:00:00:00 format) into your MAC filter list. (If you don’t know how to locate your PC’s MAC address, see http://www-dcn.fnal.gov/DCG-Docs/mac/ ). With MAC addresses is in your base station’s filter list, only PCs with network cards having a MAC in the list can enter your wireless network.
Yes, it is possible for a hacker to “pretend” to have a MAC address that is not on their wireless network card (like using a fake Social Security card). However, they would have to guess the exact 12-digit, hexadecimal MAC address in your MAC filter list (I.e. one in over 280 trillion possibilities.) If they could do that, they should just go straight to guessing PowerBall numbers – a much easier task.
