Wireless Router & Security: A Step-By-Step Guide

By: Brian Medini

Setting up a wireless router is easy. Essentially you turn your
cable or DSL modem off and your wireless router on. Then, you
connect the router to the modem with a cable, and turn the modem
back on. You are more or less done. The wireless network wizard
on your computer will pick up the router and, if your ISP does
not have any special requirements, away-you-go, you are on the
Internet.

For ease of setup and configuration, manufacturers ship wireless
routers with all security disabled. Therein lies the problem. If
you do not take any further steps to secure your router, and a
surprising number of people don't, your network will be wide
open to all passersby and strangers. It's like you've hung out a
sign, "The door is open. Please come in and help yourself."

The problem is not that strangers will be able to use your
router to access the Internet but that, without further
protection, would-be intruders will be able monitor and sniff
out information you send and receive on your network. Malicious
intruders can even hop on to your internal network; access your
hard drives; and, steal, edit, or delete files on your computer.

The good news is that it is relatively easy to secure your
wireless router. Here are three basic steps you should take.

1. Password protect the access to your router's internal
configuration

To access your router's internal setup, open a browser and enter
the routers setup URL. The URL will be specified in the manual.
The URLs for D-Link and Linksys routers, two major manufacturers
of wireless routers, are http://192.168.0.1 and http://192.168.1.1, respectively.

For Linksys routers, leave the user name blank and type "admin"
(without the quotes) in the password field and press enter. To
change the password, simply click on the Password tab and enter
your new password.

For other routers, please consult your manual. Alternately, you
can search on the Internet with the term "default login for ".
Don't be surprised to find quite a number of pages listing
default login parameters for many different routers, even
uncommon ones.

2. Change the default SSID (Service Set IDentifier)

The SSID is the name of a WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network).
All wireless devices on a WLAN use SSIDs to communicate with
each other.

Routers ship with standard default SSIDs. For example, the
default SSID for Linksys routers is, not unsurprisingly,
"Linksys". As you can see, if you don't change the default SSID
of your router a would-be intruder armed with a few common SSIDs
from major manufacturers will be able to find your wireless
network quite easily.

To change the SSID, click on the Wireless tab. Look for an input
item labeled SSID. It will be near the top. Enter a new name for
network. Don't use something like "My Network". Use a name that
is be hard to guess.

3. Disable SSID broadcast

Wireless enabled computers use network discovery software to
automatically search for nearby SSIDs. Some of the more advanced
software will query the SSIDs of nearby networks and even
display their names. Therefore, changing the network name only
helps partially to secure your network. To prevent your network
name from being discovered, you must disable SSID broadcast.

In the same screen that you changed the name of your network,
you will see options for SSID broadcast. Choose "Disable SSID"
to make your network invisible. Now save all your settings and
log out.

Since your wireless network is now invisible, you will have to
configure your computers to connect to your wireless network
using the new name. On Windows XP, start by clicking on the
wireless icon in the Notification Area and proceed from there.

With these three steps, your network now has basic security.
However, if you keep sensitive information on your computers,
you may want to secure your wireless network even further. For
example, you can

- Change the channel your router uses to transmit and receive
data on a regularly basis. - Restrict devices that can connect
to the router by filtering out MAC (Media Access Control)
addresses. - Use encryption such as WEP and WPA.

As with most things in life, security is a trade off between
cost (time, money, inconvenience) and benefit (ease of use). It
is a personal decision you make. However for the majority of
home uses, the three basic steps plus WEP/WPA encryption
provides reasonably strong security.

Turning on encryption is a two-step process. First you configure
your router to use encryption using an encryption key of your
choice. And then, you configure your computer to use the
encryption key. The actual process of configuring your router
for encryption varies from router to router. Please consult the
router's manual.

There are even stronger methods for ensuring security. A strong
and robust security method is RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial
In User Service). Using RADIUS requires additional hardware and
software. However, there are companies that offer RADIUS
security as a subscription based service. The fees are
reasonable and dropping.

Therefore for example, if you run a business on your wireless
network, have sensitive data on your computers such as credit
card information, and have a number of users who access your
network, you should consider using RADIUS. Since the service
sector for RADIUS is dynamic and growing, a search on the
Internet with terms like "RADIUS subscription" or "RADIUS
service" is probably the best way to locate one.

About the author:
Brian Medini in association with http://computer-internet.
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