Step 5: ensure the security of the home wireless network (1)

A friend of mine recently installed a wireless router at home. After buying this router, he has been asking me at least what he should do about Router Security. He puts forward the following basic requirements: first, to protect the configuration information of the router, other people except him cannot change the configuration information. Second, prevent Unauthorized users from connecting to the vro or accessing the network.

Like most people, my friends set up their routers and initialize them according to the product installation instructions and Installation Wizard. Follow the Installation Wizard to change the administrator password to protect the router. In any case, although setting an administrator password through the router configuration software is a good start, it can only provide basic security protection. This is only the first of the two requirements proposed by my friend.

If your wireless network remains open like my friends, anyone in your wireless router can access the Internet and your home PC through your network. If you are in this situation, you need to do something. You only need to follow the five steps below to protect your home wireless network.

Step 1: Change the default administrator password of the vro

Basically, all routers provide a default user ID and password. Because this password is well known, you must change this default password. You can change it by running the vro installation and Configuration Wizard. This operation is simple.

If the router you are using does not provide such a wizard, you can use a browser to connect to the router to change it. For example, to connect to the Linksys router, after the router is powered on and connected to the Ethernet network cable, Open a Web browser and type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. You can use the default user ID and password to log on to the router, then you can change the default password.

Step 2: Change the default SSID and Disable SSID broadcast.

All routers are bound to an SSID provided by the manufacturer, that is, the service setting identifier. The SSID is composed of 32-bit letters or numbers and contains the ID or name of a wireless LAN. For example, the default SSID name of the Linksys router is Linksys. The default SSID is well known and publicly published. Therefore, the manufacturer of the wireless router recommends that you change the default SSID so that it is unique. In addition, they also recommend that you change your SSID as often as possible, because hackers know that to join a wireless network, wireless network products first listen to periodic broadcast beacon messages ), these messages are not encrypted and contain network information, such as the SSID of the network and the IP address used to access the network.

Similarly, a vrossid broadcasts its vrossid SSID. You need to disable this attribute. Although this does not provide a very high level of protection for some common tools, such as NetStumbler can detect hidden SSID), disabling SSID broadcast can add a protection measure for you. However, if you Disable SSID broadcast, it may cause inconvenience to some devices, such as HP Palmtops, which may not connect to the network or cause frequent disconnection.

Step 3: Change IP Address Settings

The router manufacturer sets the same IP address for each router. For example, the initial IP address of the Linksys router is 192.168.1.1. These addresses are public and well known. In this way, malicious users can easily obtain your IP address if they know the manufacturer and type of the vro you are using. Therefore, you should change the IP address as part of the configuration process. Take Linksys as an example. You can change the default IP address 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.10.1. Although changing the IP address does not protect the router, it makes it difficult for eavesdroppers to guess the IP address.

DHCP is activated by default on each vro. DHCP provides the IP address information of the customer's machine. Generally, DHCP servers distribute IP addresses in the range of 2. Therefore, 253 clients can obtain IP addresses from your vro. You may not have so many systems at home, so it is best to reduce the DHCP range to the number of machines you want to include in your network. Based on my experience, I set the number of addresses processed by my vro to the number of machines in my network, and add two additional addresses for visiting friends and family.