Security and Your Home WiFi

Our technology is moving from those old dusty cables and wires to a more streamlined world of wireless convenience. With this merge of technologies comes a new realm of security issues and for some of us an overwhelming possibility of unwelcomed threats. We, as the next generation of end users, need to start protecting ourselves from these new threats and we need to start this process in the home. The main topic of this article is the understanding of wireless security and how we can better protect our digital assets. The wireless router seems to be one of the most overlooked aspects of our home network. We want to keep intruders off our PCs and other connected devices but we forget that they need to gain access to our network first. The Router, whether it be wireless or not, is the gatekeeper to our network and it needs to have strong passwords and advanced capabilities just like our computer. If your router is more than 5 years old, it is probably time to start saying your goodbyes. The advancements in wireless technology are moving faster than we can buy the equipment. Keeping an up to date router at the front of your network is like building a brand-new brick wall around your house. That brick wall will start to deteriorate after a while in the elements and must be fixed throughout the years. This also plays into an old router at the front of your network, it must be updated frequently but will eventually have to be replaced. With that said, the wireless signal that is broadcasted throughout both your home and your place of business is an open vulnerability to your network if it isn’t properly configured. Your wireless router needs to be capable of the latest wireless encryption types and have a strong password that is not easily guessed or easily hacked with a Brute-Force or Dictionary attack. We need to say no to simple passwords like “password” or “1234” and start using difficult passwords like “P@$$w0rd!@#$”. Other security measures that we can implement are the options to configure our routers to not display our SSIDs (wireless network name) or we can even narrow down our wireless network to allow access for our specific devices, known as MAC Address Filtering. These are all great implementations to further the security of our wireless networks. We have the power to proactively protect ourselves, it is just a matter of educating this new era of end users on the silent threats that we face every day.