Keeping your business’ Internet connections secure is paramount in the quest to maintain cybersecurity. There really isn’t any other option. Fortunately, protecting your business’ wireless connections isn’t that difficult. This month, we will go through a few steps that you can take to help keep your Wi-Fi connection secure.
Just like any password-protected account, the first step to improving security is to change that information. If you fail to complete this step, things can get bad pretty quickly. Most routers have a list of default passwords for the different models they produce. This means if you fail to change the security information, including the password, you are basically inviting anyone that can work a Google search to infiltrate your wireless connection. You will want to change this password regularly to ensure that your router remains secure.
Additionally, you will want to change your service set identifier (SSID) tag. You’ve probably searched for a certain wireless network to connect to and you’ve seen a series of different Wi-Fi options. The SSID is the name of the account that users will see when they look to connect to your wireless network. Since the default name of the router is the one that will pop up if you don’t change the name—something that you definitely don’t want to advertise—simply changing the name is an easy solution to what could be a potential problem.
Finally, if you don’t want people to try and access your business’ wireless network, you have the option to disable SSID broadcasting. This will effectively keep your SSID, and therefore your wireless network, from being listed as an available network on wireless devices. By turning off SSID broadcasting, someone would have to know the exact name of your Wi-Fi network in order to access it.
Once you are done setting up your router’s name and password, you will want to set up the available security features that will help keep your network safe. The first thing you will want to do is set up your WPA2 encryption. Many new routers come with this feature that provides unique encryption to each device connected to the network. You will then need to enable the firewall on your router and update the firmware to ensure that you have the latest threat definitions.
Finally, you will want to set up a guest network so that you can offer wireless connectivity to guests. For security purposes you don’t want your employees and your guests on the same networks, so you can partition the network to ensure that your guests have access to Wi-Fi, but not access to your business’ network.
Securing your Wi-Fi connection is an imperative action to maintain organizational cybersecurity. If you would like help choosing a router that fits your business’ security and wireless needs, give the IT professionals at First Column IT a call today at (571) 470-5594.
