Wireless Security – What You Should Know

Wireless networking is one of the simplest ways that a person can access networks and the Internet. With the advent of wireless networking, even people and areas who cannot invest in heavy infrastructure for internet connections, etc have been able to procure at least the basic internet connectivity. Wireless networks are basically used by people who are always on the move, and therefore cannot use the Internet in a wired atmosphere. Therefore, wireless networking is mostly seen in laptops and mobile internet devices like GPRS enabled cell and smart phones.

However, wireless networking faces its biggest issue – wireless security. Because the machines and the devices that are used to access a wireless network are ambiguous, no wireless network is cent percent safe today. Also, wireless networks suffer from the ignorance of the wireless network users, both at the corporate levels as well as the personal usage level.

One of the most common problems that wireless networking experiences is unauthorized access. This happens simply because most companies and organizations keep their networks accessible without any password or security. This allows almost anyone to latch onto their network, not knowing either the problems that are created out of this action, nor knowing that they are on a proprietary network.

If your company or your organization has a wireless environment, it is very necessary that the environment is secure. Any wireless network can be hacked and it can have serious ramifications for the network and the company. For one, the company can lose some of its critical and secretive data if a person is able to hack into their computers through their network. Also, the hacker can install a virus in all the computers of the network, so that the productivity of the company or organization is lowered.

One of the first actions that a wireless network owner should take is to add the authentication aspect to the wireless network. With this, anyone who wishes to use the wireless network would have to authenticate themselves, before they can use the network.

Also, you would have to make a strong password that allows anyone to access your wireless network. There are several tools that are available online, which you can use to make a strong password. You can make a password that goes till even ten alphabets. Digits should be made compulsory when it comes to making passwords.

These are just some of the aspects that you have to keep in mind while ramping up your wireless security.