Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Securing Wireless Networks - Small Business and Residential Setups

Today in the year 2008, In the United kingdom, broadband take up is increasing sharply and some anecdotal evidence can be garnered from the fact that there is virtually no marketing of dialup internet connection offer, substantively all internet service providers market only their broadband services. Generally, most ISPs provide wireless routers as standard for all fixed land line ADSL broadband connections. ISPs generally offer slightly different connection packages to small businesses and these packages do often include celcom broadband and streamyx free wireless touter. The primary use of wireless routers issued by the ISPs is internet connection sharing. Thus a single broadband connection in a household or office could be telekom by several computers within the range of that router.

Setup for your router will usually offer the services of an automated setup procedure or wizard to take you through the setup procedure. If you obtained a package that doesn't include setup by trained technician, then you should opt for the wizard unless you and completely familiar with network setup procedures.

wep protection with hexadecimal key: These days, most routers are based jaring the wi fi standards and these routers come with wep encryption . streamyx usb setup wizard will give you the option of using wep encryption on most wifi routers. Accept this option and then invent a hexadecimal key as instructed by the wizard. In the UK, most routers support the 64 bit hexadecimal key. setup broadband requires you to make up a 10 digit number made up of alphabets and numbers , numbers being from 0 to 9. This key once malacca malaysia by you must be written down because you will five star hotels kuala lumpur to input this key in every internet wishing to share that wireless internet access. The wep encryption is essentially password protection for your wireless network. As long as you don't divulge your wireless key to people who shouldn't have it, your wireless network will be solidly defended against casual intruders.

Without wep protection, without any other kind of wireless encryption, your wireless network would be as secure as a roadside cafe wireless hotspot, that is open to all computers equiped to use it.

DHCP: Most networks are configured using dhcp servers. The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol(DHCP) server assigns network addresses to all computers using a network, and automates what would otherwise be a really complex part of network set up. Most wifi routers come pre configured to act as DHCP servers by default. The router wizard will guide you through set up and as long as you accept the default settings, your set up should go smoothly. When you set up the computers that will be used to access the internet via router, the client computers must be set up to obtain their network addresses from the router.

DHCP really simplifies the set up off networks of all sizes, however, it also makes it a lot easier for an uninvited interloper to join your wireless network, particularly where the wep encryption option has not been taken up. Essentially, any computer configured to accept wireless network tm net selfcare automatically, might be able to join your network. This could , potentially, give the interloper full access to the computer files of every computer on your wireless network.

Manual internet broadband speed test Setup: Most routers can be configured to use manually assigned computer addresses or IP addresses. These fixed IPs are substantively harder to configure and are my preferred option for small wireless networks. This is not a viable option unless you do have considerable technical knowledge of network setup. The benefits include the fact that interlopers have to work quite a bit harder to break into such a network. Nevertheless , a fully secured network is probably an impossible setup to achieve.

Shared Folders: In a residential network, its unlikely that you will need to have shared folders, thus ensure that all shared folders are disconnected. In a work environment where shared folders are necessary, a structured permissions regime will be required to secure your files and folders. Unprotected shared folders can be accessed by unwanted network interlopers who have the skills to do so. The use of all the available means of folder protection would discourage all but the most determined interloper. A failure to observe simple security methods like this has been known to undermine the security of many networks, wired and wireless.

I addition to the fairly fundamental issues already addressed other things to bear in mind will include the need to power cycle your router occasionally. This means switching off the router for up to 5 minutes. If you find that you're streamyx homepage to access the internet while the router is operational, a power cycle of your router will often resolve the problem, it not call your technical support team.

Wireless routers are based on radio signal technology, so just like with TV and radio, reception can be bad in places. Experiment with your wireless routers position till you achieve the best results possible. Your router will always install a signal strength indicator on your computer desktop.

In summary, wireless routers can be a great joy to to use, and in so far as you are aware of the pitfalls, they can be reasonably secure too. Enjoy.

About me
I an kl plaza by profession, a web entrepreneur and developer at home, graduated as a Mechanical Engineer many years ago. Since graduation, I 've worked in a many areas, and now having wanted to be a writer for ages, I've found a way to get a foot in, publish my works for the world to see.

Two of my websites are
http://www.terranlink.co.uk a UK web directory
http://www.socialise.info an international web directory

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