Simple And Easy Steps To Securing A Wireless LanSecuring Wireless LAN is not so exorbitant or difficult these days. Securing a wireless LAN connection will cost you less than one hundred dollars. However, with the increased proliferation of wireless LAN connections, there is also the increased chances of network intruders who can access your connection and wreak havoc with your system—in office or at home. Securing wireless LAN has been rendered easy with the increased user friendly nature of the programs as well as the hardware. You just have to connect the hardware to your system and it is ready to use immediately. However, there is always the security angle to consider. Therefore, it is not always very safe to just get going as soon as you secure the wireless LAN system ready. It will be best to take some time out and configure the security settings. To protect the wireless LAn or WLAN network you can adopt certain steps like: You are bound to have a router and an access points. These can be secured so that an administrator's password will be the only way to log into the wireless LAN system or network. There are default passwords that come with certain systems. However, these are obvious ones—like the manufacturer's name. To make the access point and wireless rooter secure customize them and set your own passwords. However, as you may not need to use these passwords all the time you may forget them. This can be a major setback because then you will have to revert back to the default setting which will destroy all the new configurations that you had set to your wireless LAN network. Access points and routers need to be configured to prevent them from automatically giving out the SSID or service identifier and even the name of the wireless LAN network. This is convenient in certain ways as you can locate a particular network of wireless LAN without knowing its name. However, this will also leave the network user vulnerable from outside interventions as this will render the network continuously visible to others nearby. There are two kinds of encryption available for a secure wireless LAN network. These are WEP or wired equivalency privacy and WPA or wi-fi Protected access. Though the former is more commonly used there are certain easily penetrable weaknesses of the WEP system of encryption. These shortcomings of WEP system makes it much more easily exploitable. Any user with adequate preparation and the right programs can crack this code and enter your wireless LAN system. WPA is a much better option. Not only do they provide extra protection but also this system is easier to use and implement; passwords are not limited to certain numbers or alphabets as in the WEP. Windows XP has an inbuilt support system for the WPA system as well. A newer version of WPA called WPA2 is also available. This offers even better protection but you need to download special packages to make it work. |