Having a wireless network at home gives you the convenience and simplicity especially if you have more than one wireless device at home. You may connect your notebook, desktop, home entertainment PC, smartphone and other wireless enabled devices to the Internet without the hassle of hooking up the ethernet cables. You may get connected from anywhere within your house and even your house compound.

Today, wireless networking products are so common and inexpensive that just about any average Joe can set up a WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) easily with less than $100 worth of equipment. This widespread use of wireless networks means there are many potential network intruders sneaking within range of your home wireless network.

Intruders could be just riding your network to use the Internet, but the worst nightmare is when they are using your network to send blackmail emails to other people, or to post provocative comment in social networks. By doing this, they will become anonymous as the IP trace run will shows the wireless network owner, not the intruder!.

They could also steal your information such as password and your personal files if there’s any drive sharing enabled computer connected to the network. Things will get worse if they put stealth program into the computer to gain control of your computer in the future.

Hardening your network security is very important to ensure these will not happen to you. Here are some tips on how to secure your wireless network from these threats

1. Change your Admin Control Panel password
All wireless network equipments comes with administration control panel interface which is accessible through the web browser. These admin panel comes with factory default password which can easily be retrieved from the manual book or by googling. These default passwords usually use weak and easily guessed passwords such as “password”, “password123″ or “administrator”. First thing after setting up a new wireless network, you need to change the password to much more complex one. The password should consists of alphabet, number, symbol and should be minimum of 8 characters. Make sure you write down the password and keep it in a safe place so you could refer to it if needed as you won’t be accessing the admin panel regularly. Without it, the only way to access the admin interface is to reset the device to factory default settings which will wipe away the configuration which you have made.

2. Hide your wireless SSID
SSID or Service Set Identifier is the network name broadcasts by the wireless router or access point (AP). This makes setting up wireless clients very easy since you can locate the a wireless network without having to know its name. But this will also make your WLAN visible to any wireless clients within its range. By turning off your SSID broadcast, it will be hidden from your neighbours or passers-by. Although it still be detectible by WLAN sniffers, you can make things harder from being a victim of wireless intruders easily.

3. Enable encryption
Encryption is the best way to avoid your data from being ‘read’ by intruders. In the event where your wireless network has been compromised, you can prevent them from getting your electronic banking password or read your personal emails. The WEP or Wireless Equivalency Privacy is one of encryption available. But it has well-known weaknesses that make it relatively easy for a person with good technical knowledge and the right equipment to crack the encryption and access the wireless network.
A better way to protect your WLAN is by using the WPA (WiFi Protected Access) which gives much better protection and easier to use, since the password characters are not limited to 0-9 and A-F as they are with WEP. WPA support is built into Windows XP (with the latest SP) and above operating systems from Microsoft. A later version, WPA2, is found in newer hardwares and provide even better encryption.

4. User MAC filtering for Access Control
Unless you’re running a cafe and provide free wireless access, you may only need a number of devices to be able to connect to your wireless. Those devices include your own one or friends/relatives who regularly visit your house and access the Internet wirelessly. MAC addresses are unique number that can be found on any wireless device. You need to enable the MAC filtering service from the Admin Control Panel (ACP) interface first and then add each and every device that you want to allow. Although I personally found this sometimes troublesome, especially when someone came to your house and needs to use the Internet, I think this is one of the best way to safeguard your wireless network from unauthorized access. You will need to
find out his device’s MAC address, login to the ACP and add the new MAC address.

5. Limit your WLAN transmission (TX) power
The ability to control the wireless transmission can only be found in certain models. With this feature, you will be able to control the transmission powe – the higher power, the more wireless broadcast is transmitted by AP/Wireless Router. By controlling the signal strength, you could prevent unnecessary transmission far away outside your house, which could pose risk of intrusion. Use wireless scanner such as Network Stumbler to see the signal strength inside your house and on your house compound. Go further outside and see if the signal still good, then you may reduce the power a little bit.

6. Disable remote administration control
Most WLAN APs/routers has this feature which allows user to remotely administer the wireless network via Internet. Those with good wireless network knowledge could potentially find and access your router. Unless you’re using this feature, just turnw this feature off.