Wireless networks have made it easier than ever to access the Internet from anywhere in your home.

Almost everyone with an Internet connection will have a WiFi router.

This allows multiple devices to connect wirelessly. However, this convenience comes at a price, it also means that other people could access your network.

If you have a WiFi network in your home, then you really need to do everything you can to protect it. This guide will highlight a number of tips to help secure WiFi.

Important security considerations for your WiFi network

This guide will go through several ways you can secure your WiFi network. These include:

• WEP or WPA settings
• Change your admin password
• SSID broadcast settings
• Change the IP address of the router

Why should you care?

All WiFi routers have built-in protection that is relatively easy to set up. However, many people will simply disable WEP or WPA.

This is because this type of security can be irritating.

Many people also don’t understand why they should bother to secure their wireless network.

There are quite a few reasons for this. First of all, other people could access your internet connection for free. This could cause your Internet connection to slow down. An unsecured WiFi connection could also allow people to use your Internet connection for illegal purposes.

If your wireless network is not properly secured, it could also allow people to access your personal files and pictures.

WEP or WPA settings

WEP, WPA Y WPA2 they are all different encryption standards used by wireless networks. All WiFi routers are capable of some form of encryption and this prevents people from accessing information and connecting to the network without the correct key.

Although encryption can seem like a real hassle when you’re setting up new devices on your network, it’s worth persevering. You will only need to enter the encryption keys once on each new device. After this, the device will remember and continue to access the network normally.

WPS

WiFi Protected Setup is a seemingly useful feature included in most modern routers. This allows you to easily connect new devices to the router by pressing a button on the back of the router or by entering a pin number to allow access.

This is supposed to make it easier to use WPA encryption on your router. However, it is also very insecure. It is much easier to guess a PIN number than a full encryption key. Also, anyone with physical access to the router can press the button on the back to allow network access.

It is recommended to disable WPS on your router. This is enabled as standard on most newer routers. It can be easily disabled by logging into the admin panel of your router and making the changes.

Broadcast SSID

The usual way to use WiFi networks is to search and select the network. If you want to protect WiFi, you can prevent the router from broadcasting the SSID. This means that people won’t know your network really exists when they scan. To connect, you can manually enter the name of the router.

If you don’t want to disable SSID broadcast, at least change the name of the router. This will make it harder for people to identify the make and model of router you’re using, so it should be harder for them to discover vulnerabilities and change settings.

Change the IP address of your router

Although not essential, it’s a good idea to change the IP address of your router to make it a bit more secure.

Most routers use 192.168.0.1 Prayed 192.168.0.254.

Try changing this to something a bit more random, something only you know about.

Although it is easy to scan and find the real IP of the router with the correct access, it will hopefully slow down any unwanted access to the router.

Change the admin password of your router

One important step that many people fail to do is change the administrator password. It is very easy to find the default password for a certain brand of router. It’s also easy to guess if the password is just “password” or “admin”. Make sure this password is set to something strong to prevent unwanted access.

A strong password will mean that even if someone has access to your network, they will not be able to make changes to your router.

It is essential that you learn how to properly secure WiFi connections in your home. A secure connection will prevent unwanted access to your network and will also keep your personal files and data safe.