In a previous article I explored the way in which wireless internet security can be compromised. It pains me to say this but following the sequential days of significantly slower than normal internet access, my computer’s security was in fact compromised. Someone was in fact using my wireless, so it is of no significant consequence; however it brings to the forefront the very real threat than an unsecured network can be.

So, let’s get started on securing your wireless network. We’re going to enable signal encryption in this setup.

1. Click on start and then open the command prompt (you may need administrator rights to do so).
2. Type in the command window the following (without quotations) ‘ipconfig’
3. A whole host of information will be displayed to the screen, what you want to concern yourself with is the field called ‘default gateway’. Write this address down.
4. Open a web browser and type this number into the address field and press enter.
5. You will be prompted to enter a username and password to access your router’s settings. Consult your manual for the given router on what the default username and password are. (Note: If you do not have a manual simply search for the model on the internet and find the manual online).

Now that you have access to your router’s settings, head to the administration tab and select firmware upgrade. Go to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest firmware for your particular model and upgrade the firmware using the interface.

Once your firmware has been upgraded, look for the SSID of your router. This may be found in basic wireless settings or a similar sub-menu. The SSID (service set identifier) is the name of the network. When you open up available wireless networks on your computer you will see the names of all the wireless networks in range. Each name is the SSID of those connections. Write down the SSID of yours.

Head to the wireless security section, in my case this was wireless>wireless security. You will be presented with a set of dropdown security modes available. I selected ‘WEP’. A field called passphrase comes up. In this field enter a key for the network. All devices connecting to the network must have this key in order to access the network.

Note that you should check what network adapter your computer is using. Some network adapters have hardware limitations (such as mine, thus why I cannot use WPA encoding). In order to find this out, open Device Manager and expand the section ‘Network Adapters’. You should see the name of your wireless adapter. Check which encryption types it supports and use the corresponding one. Note that should you set your router to use an encryption your laptop cannot support, you’re going to need another computer to access your router to revert these settings.

Once you save these settings, you will be disconnected from the internet, meaning that your network has now successfully enforced the security setting. Depending on the encryption you used, you will have to make modifications to how your computer accesses the wireless network. For further information see this guide on ensuring your computer recognizes WPA encryption (This guide is for Vista users, for users of Windows 7, see this).

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