Wireless Connection (making it secure)

[Mike Lowe]

How do I go about making my wirless connection secure? I'm not interested in supplying free internet for the neighbors. I'm usually ok with computers etc. but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to set this.

I have a linksys wireless router and use Comcast high speed internet.

Thanks for the help!

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

In your address bar type "192.168.1.1" to access your router settings (default password is admin with no username)

Go to wireless security and decide on either WEP or WPA. WEP is more secure as it generates four keys that are a random collection of letters and numbers. WPA allows you to set your own password.

[fishepa]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

Acually WPA is more secure than WEP.

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

Acually WPA is more secure than WEP.

I just figured the random keys made it more secure (i.e. more difficult to crack). Thanks for the heads up, though!

[mudtiger]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

Go to the router config page

Linksys should be http://192.168.1.1

The username is either left blank or is admin and the password is admin. First, change the password.

Some simple things to do - change the SSID to anything but the default. Change the channel from channel 6 to something else. You could turn off SSID broadcast, but lots of wireless configs pickup SSID's that aren't broadcast, so personally I'd say just leave it on.

You can also change the number of ip addresses the router will hand out to match the number of devices you have (this setting shoud be max number of DHCP users). If you only have the computer connected to the router, change it to 1 and your router will only hand out 1 address. If you connect another wireless(or wired) device though, you'll have to increase this number.

A little more complex (but you should do it) - Go to the wireless settings and then wireless security. Turn WPA Personal on. Enter a shared key. You want this to be a string of nonsense, or at the very least don't make it your name or street address or something like that. You want something like KQ!?q9vKX2t9.

Now you have to set up any device using that wireless connection for WPA with that same shared key. In windows it's in the wireless adapter properties and under the wireless network tab, then the association tab I believe. You have to tell it wpa for authentication and enter your shared key exactly.

That should be enough security for most. If you want more, you could set up a filtered mac list or static ip addresses, but that should be fine.

[Mike Lowe]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

Thanks so much for the assistance!

[TheMatrix31]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

Is there any program that monitors where your bandwith is going? I want to see if there are any attempts to log into my locked connection @ home, or like a usage breakdown of what bandwith my Wii uses, etc.

[davehughes14]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

How do I do this with a Netgear router? Thanks!

[fishepa]

Re: Wireless Connection (making it secure)

How do I do this with a Netgear router? Thanks!

This should be in the manual that came with the router. If you don't have the manual you can probably download it from their website.