How to secure wireless routers and computers

With wireless networks becoming the easiest and cheapest way to set up a home network, I get a lot of questions about how to make sure it’s secure. Doing so will prevent your neighbors from using your Internet bandwidth and protect shared resources on your network. Here are some tips for securing your wireless access point/router and computers with wireless adapters:

• Change the default values. Wireless routers come with a default administrator password and SSID (network name). They are usually the same for all routers of that model, so it’s common knowledge to hackers. A hacker can use that information to change your WAP settings or connect to his network.
• Turn off SSID broadcast. Broadcasting SSID makes your network visible to anyone in the area with a wireless-enabled computer. Turning it off doesn’t hide you from WLAN “sniffers,” but it does keep your neighbors from knowing you have a wireless network.
• Turn on MAC address filtering. This allows only computers whose MAC addresses have been entered by the router’s administrator to connect to the network. It’s not foolproof as some hackers can spoof MAC addresses, but it does provide a layer of security.
• Assign static IP addresses to your wireless clients and disable DHCP, so unauthorized people trying to connect don’t automatically obtain an IP address.
• Use encryption. And use WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) encryption instead of WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). For instructions on how to configure WPA in XP, see: Windows XP Wireless Network