Basic Practices for Your Wireless Networks
The latest hardware makes it easy for anyone to setup and share their own WiFi network to colleagues, family, friends, and guests, but setting up a network ‘out-of-the-box’ is not always the most efficient and is certainly not the most secure way of configuring a WiFi network. Here we’ll give you a few best practices to keep you and your systems safe and connected.
Wireless Network Name
Don’t use your name in your network’s SSID (Service Set IDentifier, your network name); it’s an easy identifier of who your are; use something more generic.
Security
Use a password for your main WiFi networks: Never leave a core wireless network without a password; it’s a major security loophole if you do.
Enable Encryption: Enable Data Encryption on all of your networks; this makes it much harder for a hacker to extract useful data from your networked communications and devices.
Parental Controls: Setup parental controls for your kids; this is a no-brainer for your home family network to prevent your younger ones from accessing material that they shouldn’t be.
Updates & Upgrades
Updates: Login to your control panel regularly and check for updates, and update your router whenever updates are available. Enable auto-update if your router has that setting.
Upgrades: Upgrade your router every few years; technology changes rapidly, and often in advance of where the updates of your current router can take you, so upgrading your router to a newer version or a smarter type can give you more and better features, and make your network more secure.
Mobile and Other Devices
Guest networks: if you really do need a ‘Guest’ wireless network, make sure that it has encryption enabled and that it has at least a basic password. Never leave them wide open.
Device security: Whenever possible, make sure that any devices connecting to your wireless network are themselves secure.
Finally…
All of these items are solid, standard practice, and are normally very easy to setup. We appreciate that not all wireless routers are the same, but most have all of these features in common, so by implementing these basic best practices, your wireless network will be more efficient and more secure, keeping you and your business data safe.
Ekahau WiFi Networks
TechPoint are in a prime position to help with your business wireless network. Offering the world-class WiFi solutions available, TechPoint’s Ekahau WiFi Solutions offer the best, most secure wireless network solution for your company IT network.
