Posted by Nerea

wirsecCan you be certain you are not INVOLUNTARILY sharing your WIFI network with your neighbors? How can you be sure that your Internet activity is not being monitored when you use a wireless network? Any user within 100 meters is a potential intruder –whether intentional or unintentional- . With wireless networks, information is sent through radio waves, and as they are simply in the air, it is impossible to prevent anyone within a radius of 100 meters capturing the data transmitted.

As you cannot prevent the information being viewed by other people, it must therefore be protected through encryption protocols. At present, the WEP, WPA and WPA2 protocols are used. Although encryption is necessary, it is not enough to prevent unwanted access to your network. There are free programs on the market which are easy-to-use and available to anyone who wants to decrypt connection passwords. Similarly, there is also software that detects any users connected to your network.

Here are a few tips to prevent WiFi intruders or any opportunists that want to hook up to the Internet for free:

  1. WPA password (they have been proved to be much better than WEP passwords, as they take 30 minutes to decrypt!).
  2. Disabled DHCP (this way it will take intruders longer to discover the type of network).
  3. Enable the Firewall module of your antivirus. Install the firewall and update the antivirus, the operating system and the programs. wirnetsec
  4. Limit the number of connections to the Router/AP (e.g. if you have one computer why allow two? When necessary, you can extend the range).
  5. Administration of the Router/AP (it should only be managed through the network and not via WiFi. This way, you will also prevent them from changing the settings).
  6. Disconnect the WIFI router when you are not using it.Â