India Blast Awareness: Securing your WiFi network - theMediaSiTE

**narens** · 04:39 PM

I don't know of anyone who could be more unlucky than Mr. Manohar Kamath at this point in time. For those who tuned in late, Mr. Kamath is the co-owner of Kamran Power Control. His company's wireless (WiFi) network was allegedly hacked and was used to send a terror email to news channels around the time of the blasts that rocked Delhi on Saturday.

Although, at this time, you can't blame him for the blasts, his misfortune of being entangled in this mess is more or less his own doing. Why? Because he forgot the golden rule of IT; securing his network and I'm sure there are thousands like him in the country and around the world.
We asked a few such people why they never secured their networks and here are some of the answers we got.

1. Who'd hack into MY network?

2. I've got more important stuff to worry about.

3. I never knew I could secure my network.

4. How do I secure my WiFi network?

Now, for those of you whose answers match or resemble the first two statements - GODSPEED.

For the rest, here are some tips on how you can secure your WiFi
network.

In our illustrations here, we have used the DLink DWL-2100AP, one of the most commonly used WiFi routers. If you don't own this particular model or brand, don't fret. You will get similar options from other routers too, albeit with a different looking interface. Now let's begin the lockdown.

First things first

The first and probably the most important thing to do would be to turn on the security features that are offered by your router. These options could either be enabled via a physical button/switch on the router or can be a part of the software disc that comes with the router package.

Disable SSID broadcasts

A service set identifier, or SSID, is a name given to the particular 802.11 wireless LANs to which a user wants to connect. A client device receives broadcast messages from all access points (or routers) within its range giving their SSIDs. The client can now choose a network to connect to.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the best practice is to change the SSID name (good practice) and to DISABLE the SSID broadcast. Disabling the SSID broadcast makes your wireless network invisible to others who might walk into the range of your router.
Using WPA2-EAP . (Wi-Fi Protected Access - Extensible Authentication Protocol) authentication protocol gives you better protection as compared to others.

Also, if you are running a small business network or more than a couple of PCs on your WiFi network, it is advised that you use RADIUS protocol that gives you centralized authentication, authorization and access control (AAA). It also uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) that allows a maximum of 256-bit encryption.

Control access to the network

Image Hosting

By controlling the number and type of devices that can connect to the network, you can give network access to a limited number of people who are known to you. It's a kind of Guest List that you can find at most pubs or fine-dines. Only those invited can go in.

DHCP Server Control

Image Hosting

Similar to the previous example, you can also choose to add an entire range of IPs when using DHCP server with dynamic IPs. You can maintain a list of Static IPs in the same way. Again, this limits the number of users that can use your network.

Limit Admin rights to a bare minimum

Image Hosting

Just like your Windows PC has an Administrator mode that gives complete control to the user, the router too comes with one. Usually people leave it just the way it is (default settings), mostly because it is convenient. But for security reasons it is strongly advised that you change the username and password from the default "admin" to something that is, hopefully, not so easy to guess.

Disabling remote administration rights is also one of the ways of reducing risk of an intrusion but this also defeats the purpose of being "online" and "anywhere" connectivity.

An off-beat method

A rather simple and sensible approach to securing your WiFi networks also includes limiting the power or range of the router. Although, this sounds simple enough, it takes a lot of trial and error combinations before you get the optimum balance and it's not that straight forward too.

Final Words

There are still some other advanced methods of securing your WiFi networks but they are out of the scope of this article. This article is meant for the average Joe who wants to enjoy the benefits of a WiFi network at home or in a small business setup.

What we have described here are simple ways that will help secure your network from intrusions. It does not mean that these will make your networks hack-proof but at least they will put it beyond the reach of the amateurs. It's just another way of feeling "safe", just as safe when you use a 500-rupee lock to shut the doors on your 10 million rupee home. Ciao

Courtesy : Techtree.com