Networks

Home networks are quite common in many of today’s households. These days, it’s actually quite the norm for the average family to have networking equipment in their home. Having a network in the home makes it a lot easier for computers and other devices to communicate with each other as well as share an internet connection. Yes, home networks provide extremely helpful features to computers, but lots of people forget that internal network security is a big issue with these networks. Many don’t know exactly how to secure their network, and there are many that don’t even take it into consideration.

Internal network security is imperative for a number of reasons. It’s important to secure your home network so that you can keep outside intruders from accessing your network and files, minimize threats like viruses and spyware, and more. For example, if you were to leave your home network unsecured, an intruder could easily access the network and do something like change your login information for you router so that he/she could gain complete control over the device. Even worse, he/she could access confidential files that you wouldn’t want the public tampering with.

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One of the most common issues that my visitors contact me about is that they have difficulty saving the passphrase for their WRT54G wireless router when securing the router with WPA. Many times the problem is resolved once they use Internet Explorer instead of another web browser. Other times, however, switching browsers may not even correct the problem.

With web browsers such as Firefox and Chrome, you have the ability to install add-ins to change many settings and functions within the browser. At times, certain add-ins can interfere with the router’s administrative pages, resulting in settings not being saved or message boxes from appearing. A recent commenter in my explaining how to secure the WRT54G wireless router pointed out that there is a minimum passphrase length, but many people may not receive a popup message, which can lead to confusion and issues. For the WRT54G, the minimum length is 8 characters , and the maximum is 63 characters. When it comes to a passphrase, you should definitely go longer than the minimum of 8 characters. Let’s look at why the passphrase, and its length, is important when securing a wireless router.

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There are many ways that you can protect yourself online, but one method many people probably don’t think about is changing DNS servers. Let’s face it, the average Internet user probably doesn’t even give a second thought about their DNS servers. The reality is, however, that changing DNS servers could yield both a security and performance benefit.

The best part is that to take advantage of the increase in performance and security requires no software install. In many circumstances changing two values in your router is all that is needed.

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Many people now use a wireless Ethernet network to connect to the Internet, and it is important to understand how to secure your wireless ethernet network. It makes it very convenient when you are not tied down by a physical cable, especially if your primary computer is a laptop. Unlike traditional, hard-wired connections, a wireless network connection requires more security to prevent unwanted access.

While the steps you take to setup the security may be different because of the hardware that is used, for the most part the settings you use to secure your wireless Ethernet connection are the same. Let’s look at what you need to do to keep your connection secured.

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