5 Effective Ways to Safeguard your Broadband Connection
Many of us make use of wireless broadband internet in our homes and offices mostly because of the speed and flexibility it provides, however, we neglect a very important aspect of our network – which is making sure it is always secure. There have been a lot of cases where wireless networks have been hacked as a result of leniency or ignorance on the part of the user; this post will be giving 5 tips to help you prevent your wireless network from being hacked.
Protect Wireless Broadband Internet Connection
5 Safety Tips for Broadband Users:
1. Change Your Default Router Password
The first thing to do when trying to secure your wireless network is to change your router password from the default one to a more complex one. Your password should be strong enough and most contain numbers, alphabets and symbols. Most hacking operations start with an attack directed at your wireless router and once this is successful the whole of your network is vulnerable. If you’re able to make your wireless router password stronger and more difficult to guess you will have overcome a large percentage of problems you will face.
2. Use a Firewall
You shouldn’t trust all the physical/default options that come with your wireless network, rather, you should go for something more robust and powerful like using a firewall. Since most routers already have a firewall what you need to do is enable it from your router settings but if your router doesn’t have a firewall you might want to download and install one from the internet.
3. Disable SSID Broadcast
You can also make your wireless network more secure by disabling SSID Broadcast. Since most people who will attempt to hack your network will first have to discover it, disabling SSID broadcast will make sure no one is able to discover your network thereby reducing your chances of being a victim of wireless hacking.
4. Use a Strong Encryption Key
Another major step to take towards securing your wireless network is using a strong encryption key. Make sure you use a very strong and difficult to get WEP key containing alphanumeric characters and symbols, and if possible, try to use WPA2 encryption. A hacker will first have to break through your encryption before he can have his way and the only way to prevent this is by using a very strong encryption key.
5. Change the Default IP of Your Wireless Router
If a hacker is going to completely take over your network a very critical thing he will be attempting is trying to access your router settings, most hackers already know the default IP that comes with most routers and that will be the first thing they will try if they stumble on your network. A great measure to take is to change your default IP to something more complex and by doing this it will be almost impossible to hack your network.
This is a guest post from Onibalusi Bamidele who writes for Broadband Expert about choosing the best broadband providers. Broadband Expert also gives you the best deals on broadband. You can also join GizJets by Guest Posting. Please comment below if you like this post.
didn’t know most of the things, thanks for sharing this useful information
thanks vivek, these days it is very important to keep your internet connection safe because hackers are in search of easy preys. it is important to save your pc from alien threats.
Good tips dude. Using WPA2 is much safer than WEP, because even the strongest wep encyption key can be broken in less than 5 minutes with a tool called aircrack-ng
i don’t operate on a wireless broadband connection but i have heard about WPA2, it much better than WEP.
Thanks, a lot of useful information. I am in the process of installing a wireless connection for my home/business. You mention changing the default IP. Is this something I only need to do once or should I do it on a regular basis, like changing passwords?
Thanks again for the information.
John
Excellent post, I did not realize this! I have a lot to do over the next couple of days. I am going to save this post to share with others, as I am sure I am not alone in not knowing some of this stuff. Security is important and I didn’t fully comprehend what it took to get it.
Network Security is a must for Individuals and Corporations.
I’m sorry to say that I disagree in regards of hiding the SSID.
It’s extremely easy to find the ID for a “hidden” network—all you have to do is use a utility like inSSIDer, NetStumbler, or Kismet to scan the network for a short while to show all of the current networks out there. It’s really that simple, and there’s plenty of other tools that do the same job.
Even Microsoft wrote a paper about how non-broadcasted wireless network is not a security feature. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726942.aspx#EDAA
hi, u mentioned the ways of preventing it, but not HOW to do it.. Can u please list out the steps to disable the SSID broadcast and how to set an encryption?
I was shock when I know that a wireless broadband can be hacked. I follow the tips and I already set up my computer. Thank you for this tips it is really helps a lot.