Whether you are working from home or you love streaming services over Wi-Fi, you need to consider protecting your home network. The Wi-Fi in your house has to work to support all devices, and when you work from home especially, you need it to be strong enough to support your work and safe enough to keep hackers out. Working from home is the norm for right now, but that doesn’t mean that you have to keep your network unprotected where anyone can log in and see sensitive information.
Usually, the only measure that people use to protect their home network is a password, but that’s not the only way to ensure that you keep your data safe. You have to get serious about security, especially if you’ve been tasked with working remotely. The last thing that you need is to run a business from home with such weak security that someone will exploit it and log in. This gives them the chance to steal your data, your credit card information, and much more. Wi-Fi is not always secure, and while you can use this link https://setapp.com/how-to/change-your-macbook-name to change the name of your computer to make it harder to find, you need to do more. Learning how to secure your wireless home network is a smart move, so you need to do everything possible to bump your home security. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at how you can do it.
- Change The Network Name
There is something more secure about a whole new name for your network, and while you would change your Macbook name to hide it on Bluetooth networks, you can also change the name of the network itself. It’s fun to come up with a clever name for your Wi-Fi, but it draws attention when you do that and you need to start thinking about how you want to be viewed from the outside. Changing the default name will make it harder for any malicious attackers to know the router type you have, and this makes your network less vulnerable.
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- Set A Strong Password
We’ve talked about the password being easy to change, but you want to set a strong, case-sensitive password for your router. Every router comes with a preset password, but you want to change that straight away. It should have letters and numbers, and it should be a good mix with around 20 characters.
- Encryption
You can increase the security of your Wi-Fi network by using network encryption. Wireless networks have more than one encryption language, including WPA2, WEP and WPA. You want to make sure that you enhance the security of your network with the right encryption language. There are so many features that will be perfect for Wi-Fi security and encryption language is one of them. You can ask your network service provider to help you with this one, and they will be able to activate it for you.
- Switch It Off
When you’re not at home, you need to turn off the Wi-Fi. Just as with any appliance in the house, you shouldn’t leave them plugged in and switched on. Not only is the wireless left “awake” and vulnerable enough for people to log in, you are going to run your electricity bill up. If you turn off the router, you’re going to close off any opportunities for people to hack in.
- Location, Location, Location
Did you know that it’s important that you put the router somewhere in your home that is most secure? Your router location can determine whether your router is secure at all, and if you ensure that the router is in the middle of your house, it will be safer! Why? Well, the middle of your home is least accessible and harder to find. Putting it near the window may be handy to capture the signal, but it’s not going to keep your router secure.
- Admin Passwords
When you set up your wireless router, you set up an administrative password to enhance your Wi-Fi security. When you do this, you need to access an online platform or site and this can help you to make several changes to your network settings. Admin passwords are important, especially as the number of wireless networks has dramatically increased over the past few years. If you ensure that you have an admin password that’s strong, it will be so much harder for people to hack into your router.
- Change Your IP Address
Did you know that you can change your default IP address? It’s not too hard to do, but changing your default router will ensure that you make it much harder for people to track your router and follow what you’re doing. After you’ve changed the IP address, you need to type the new one into the web browser bar. You can even change out the DNS server that your router is using.
- Turn Off Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
If you want to enhance your wireless security, you need to turn off the DHCP server inside the router. This is the device that manages the IP addresses assigned to each device on a network. You have to use the static addresses and enter the network settings to be secure.
- Turn Off Remote Access
Almost every router allows you to connect to it with remote access. If you turn off the remote system, malicious people cannot access the privacy settings from a device that has not connected to your router. You can password protect it, but it’s going to be better for you ro turn off your remote access so nothing outside can hack into it.
- Update Your Software
Your software is a big part of the wireless network security and the router firmware will contain flaws. The best thing to do is to update your software every time it needs it. Unfortunately, so many routers don’t have an auto-update of their software, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep looking at it and upgrading it where necessary.
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