8 great ways to secure wireless wifi networks for businesses and families

Today, almost businesses, families are equipped with wireless networks and specifically wifi. However, wireless network security is not really taken care of properly, while wifi is easily compromised by hackers and other bad internet objects.

Because the connection environment of the wifi network is air, the user’s intrusion is higher than that of the wired network. Hackers can eavesdrop on devices using public wifi networks, leading to disclosure and theft of sensitive information, passwords, emails…. So, immediately apply these 8 ways to secure your wireless network.

Turn on encryption

This is one of the must-have for wireless security. If you ignore this, the information on the device can be compromised by anyone. Most wifi routers have encryption disabled, which is very dangerous. So make sure the device has encryption turned on. Do the following:

Step 1: Into the Start, find and select Control Panel.

Step 2: Click View network status and tasks below the item Network and Internet.

Step 3: Click Change adapter settings, then double-click the Wi-Fi entry. Continue to select Wireless Properties and go to Security tab.

In fact, not all encryption standards are equally good, there are a few encryption options (Security Mode) such as:

• WEP (Wired Equivalent Protection) encryption is outdated and easy to attack. It is easily “broken down” within 1 note.
• WPA-PSK or WPA-Personal is a new type of encryption and is more secure than WEP. Most laptops today support this WPA standard.
• WPA2: is the encryption standard with the best security.

In general, be sure to choose the WPA2 standard if your device supports it. If not, choose WPA Personal and absolutely do not use WEP because it is vulnerable to hacker attacks.

For the Encryption type entry choose AES because it provides strong encryption and is very difficult to attack. You should not choose TKIP, if you want to choose it, please update your device.

Change the network name (SSID)

Changing the default network name (SSID) is also one way to secure the wireless network. Did you know that hackers all know the default network name that routers and ISPs use? So if you don’t change the default name, hacker will find out what type of router you are using and attack more easily on that wifi wireless network. To proceed with network SSID rename, you can follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Enter your router’s IP address in the address bar on any browser.

Step 2: Log in with the network administrator’s username and password.

Step 3: Go to the item Setting (settings) and navigate to the item Wireless Network Name (SSID) and then proceed to rename your network.

Disable SSID broadcast

Another way to secure a wireless network is to hide the display of the wifi network connection name in the list of available wifi networks of all nearby devices. When you hide the display of your network name (disable SSID broadcast), if anyone wants to connect to wifi, they will have to ask you for SSID. To disable SSID broadcast you also go to the section Settings as instructed above. Then navigate to the item Wireless SSID Broadcast and choose to enter Disable as shown below.

You can refer to how to do details in: Better Wi-Fi security with SSID hiding

Turn on MAC filter

This way of securing the wireless network allows the wifi network to be accessed only on trusted devices. To create a list of MAC addresses for devices that need to connect to the wireless network, you can see this address on the outside of the device.

To add a device’s MAC address to your wifi network, log in to the router manager as described above. Go to the item Wireless MAC Filter and enable (Enable) the Wireless MAC Filter function. Choose Edit Mac filter list and add the MAC addresses of the devices that are allowed to access it.

Change username and password

This is also a simple way to secure the wifi network for your organization. Before using sophisticated methods, hackers often try to break into wifi by logging in with the network administrator username and password. And it should be noted that these talented hackers have tools that help to find out the admin username and password very quickly.

Therefore, you should not leave the default initial password, name or password too simple and easy to guess. Use an admin username and password that’s hard to guess, and combine uppercase, lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers to increase complexity. Meaningless sequences of passwords are sometimes much stronger. This will make it harder for attackers to detect usernames and passwords.

Turn on firewall security

Some routers have a built-in firewall, turn it on to secure your wireless network. A firewall monitors the traffic to your wifi network and can block unauthorized accesses. To turn on the firewall go to the section Configuration in the router manager and navigate to the entry Firewall good SPI Firewall then choose Enable.

Turn off remote management / unnecessary services

In some routers, these management services are automatically enabled, allowing you to manage your wifi from devices connected outside the network. This can help hackers access the router manager easily from another network. Managing your wifi router from an external network doesn’t offer much benefit, and it also poses great risks. So you should disable these features.

To do this you also go to Configuration from the wireless network manager as described above. Find and select Disable items like SSH and Telnet if they are enabled. In addition, some routers also enable FTP and Samba pre-enabled. They can make your network more vulnerable to attack so please disable them.

Use a VPN service

Using a VPN can also help secure wifi wireless networks. To use VPN you first connect to wifi to the VPN server and then connect to wifi to the outside internet. All traffic will be managed via VPN. Moreover, a VPN can also anonymize part of your network traffic and will help to secure wifi better.

VPN is divided into 2 types, client-to-site VPN for personal users, home and site-to-site VPN to help secure business network, office network, organization and center without need to install manually. To use this type of VPN, now there is BizFly VPN service that provides a secure and secure transmission line for business connection in Vietnam.

Above are 8 ways to help secure wireless networks for businesses. With these methods, using the network is really a great utility when there are no more worries about information insecurity.