MichaelG Posted March 7, 2005 Share Posted March 7, 2005 As topic says, any wireless network experts here ? I set up my laptop to run on a wireless card and wireless ADSL router a few weeks ago, and tonight i went to connect and it couldnt find the router in range. So i searched for an "available wireless network" and it found my router........great...........BUT ............ it also found another wireless network called WLHOME ??!?! I am assuming this is a wireless network of my neighbours as it must be, but it DID say that WLHOME was secured and needed a key to be accessed. with a pic of a padlock. Whats worrying me more though, is fair enough i picked up on my neighbours network, and couldnt of accessed it anyways, but MY wireless network that it found, it said was "unsecured". So i am assuming anyone else in range can access this and log on using my phone line etc ?? So how do i go about making my wireless connection / signal secure ? It all works fine, i am just a little worried that its not secure. The router is a D-LINK G604T WIRELESS from memory, and the card is a DWL-G65O+ if thats any use, or anyone knows the settings for how to do it on a D-Link router. Would be much appreciated. Cheers in advance Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesC Posted March 7, 2005 Share Posted March 7, 2005 Normally when you log in to your router utility program you will find the security settings, which will be disabled. If you put WEP security on it will ask you for this key when you try to connect to it from your laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shovels Posted March 7, 2005 Share Posted March 7, 2005 Hi Michael, There's a few ways you can make your WiFi network more secure: 1: as james says, you can turn on WEP security. This will password protect your connection and also encrypt data transmissions. 2: Turn on MAC address security - basically every network adapter has a unique MAC address. You can tell the router to only talk to your MAC address. That way unless someone manages to use a MAC spoofing tool they won't be able to use your network. 3. currently your router has SSID enabled. This broadcasts your WiFi network name out to any WiFi enabled computer in range. By disabling this you will also help protect your connection. IMHO I reckon it's only really worth going for the methods 2 & 3. A the end of the day unless your transmitting sensitive data I wouldn't worry too much about the WEP security as I have heard reports of this decreasing your WiFi range. I guess you already have, but just make sure you have changed all the default passwords to something a bit more secure. If you want help in setting up any of these, let me know and I'll email you some more details instructions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted March 7, 2005 Share Posted March 7, 2005 To be honest... If you don't have overly sensitive data, I would just activate MAC address filtering... it is all I use.... I find WEP and WPA slows things down..., MAC address filtering will stop most people... unless they are really determined to get in... and in my case, they would have to sit outside on my driveway or out the back, and if they really want to sit and listen to my music collection... Gav Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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