In yet another Wi-Fi privacy story where Google admitted to copying passwords from home networks is proof that people are still leaving their home networks wide open to prey despite the simple security features available on their wireless routers, says Gareth Jones regional sales manager, Cisco Linksys.
We’re seeing Wi-Fi data hacking stories in the news every other day yet it is as easy as one, two, three to protect your home network using the security settings that everybody has on their wireless routers. People must wake up to the fact that anybody can help themselves to their data if they continue to neglect the security settings on their routers. A recent report* proved that almost half of UK private Wi-Fi networks could be hacked in five minutes and a quarter had worryingly no password protection whatsoever.
The emphasis is now on consumer responsibility and banks are no longer obliged to reimburse victims of fraud that are careless about security. This could leave many of us severely out of pocket if a hacker stole our personal details.
Yet despite this anybody from criminals, big brand companies such as Google and nosey neighbours can very easily help themselves to our details if our Wi-Fi networks remain unsecured. It has never been more important to lock down your online data, we don’t leave the house without locking our front doors so the fact that we continue to leave our Wi-Fi details exposed to all and sundry is worrying.
Everybody with a wireless router can simply switch on the security settings to protect their networks. If everybody does this today we can be rest assured that our data will be safe from the prying eyes of criminals, companies and individuals and the risk of fraud will be greatly reduced. By logging onto your home network and following these five easy steps now, consumers can secure their online ‘gateway’ and significantly reduce the risk of fraud.
1. Change the default password
Change the default password your router provides you with during setup. Hackers know these defaults and will try them to access your wireless device and change your network settings.
2. Change the name of your wireless network
Your router will have a default SSID (Service Set Identifier) or name which can be up to 32 characters long. Hackers know these defaults and can use them to join your network. Change your network’s SSID to something unique, and make sure it doesn’t refer to the networking products you use. As an added precaution, be sure to change the SSID on a regular basis, so any hacker who may have figured out your network’s SSID in the past will have to figure out the SSID again and again.
3. Switch on WPA Encryption
Encryption protects data that is transmitted over a wireless network. Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) offer different levels of security for wireless communication. WPA is considered to be more secure than WEP, because it uses dynamic key encryption.
4. Hide the name of your network
By default, most routers are set to broadcast the SSID (or network name), so hackers can easily pick up your network and join it so it’s best to disable the SSID broadcast.
5. Enable MAC address filtering
Some routers give you the ability to enable MAC address filtering. This is not MAC like Mac computers. With MAC address filtering, you specify which computers can access your network. It would be very difficult for a hacker to access your network using a random MAC address.
By Gareth Jones
Regional sales manager
Cisco Linksys
