How To Secure Wifi In Your Office

In the third quarter of 2012, companies and organizations around the world had to avoid 981 million piracy attempts. According to all estimates, that number has now slightly exceeded $ 1 billion per quarter.

Some of these hacking attempts were made through unsecured desktop wifi networks. In an era in which companies lose billions of dollars every year from hackers, it is vital that you take all measures to protect your desktop wifi.

Here are some general steps you can take to improve your wifi security:

1. Use a secure wifi password

The first step in protecting the office wifi network security is to choose a secure password. Yes, it may sound simple, but you will be surprised to discover that a small but significant proportion of wifi users leave their connection unsecured (6%) or use standard credentials (11). This means that everyone can connect. Connect to your wifi network and not only block your bandwidth, but also hack your office network.

2. Change router administrator credentials

Each wifi router has an administration panel where you can change the settings, block sites, define firewall rules, access protocols, configure the wireless local area network (WAN) and update the firmware For most routers, and You can access this administrator area by entering the router's IP address in your browser (usually 192.168.0.1/192.168.1.1).

The default credentials for this page are "admin" (for the username) and "password" (for the password). Since most users rarely change these credentials, anyone with access to their wifi network can easily log in to the router's administrator area and change the settings, putting the entire network at risk.

Therefore, the second step to protect your wifi Office is to replace the router password with a more secure password than the default credentials. You can do it yourself in the administration area, usually under the heading "Set password".

3. Activate WPA or WPA2 encryption

It is known that WLAN passwords are easy to crack. For this reason, experts recommend adding WPA or WPA2 encryption to the password (WEP, another popular protocol, is no longer considered secure enough). Once you have enabled WPA encryption, anyone who wants to access your co-work wifi network needs a password in addition to the wifi password. Make sure the password is difficult to decipher (and different from the wifi password). All network traffic is completely illegible for people who do not have the correct password.

4. Use a common wifi SSID

Wifi SSID (Service Set Identifier) is the name used to identify your wireless connection. You will see this name on the wireless connection page of your computer. Most people call their wifi connection, something that they can easily remember and identify. Most of the time, this contains personal information, such as B. company name, address or a favourite personal appointment / favourite group/favourite movie, etc.

In this way, the WLAN can be easily identified for you and your colleagues. Hackers can also more easily locate your WLAN and track it to your company. For this reason, experts recommend using a generic name such as "Connection 1" instead of an easily identifiable SSID as "XYZ Company wifi."

You can change the SSID in the router administrator area, exactly where the router password changed.

5. Restrict access to devices

Each device with wireless network functions has a unique identifier called the "MAC" address (media access control address). This is usually done in the form of six pairs of numbers and letters such as "86: 8B: 24: 25: 00: BE". On a Windows computer, you will find the MAC address in "Physical address" on the properties page of your connection.

If you know which devices need to access wifi in your office, you can use the router administration panel to restrict wifi access to only selected devices. Devices whose MAC address is not on the approved list cannot connect to the network. Since changing the MAC address is very difficult, you can make your office wifi extremely safe.

6. Disable unnecessary functions

Most new wifi routers come with features that allow remote access to the router's administration panel, connected computers, etc. For most users, these features are quite redundant and only affect network security. Unless you specifically need these functions, you must disable them so that an attacker does not use them to access the router remotely.

7. Configure a router firewall

As any computer security expert will tell you, the firewall is your first line of defence against a threat. Although you can configure a firewall on your computer, it is also very advantageous to configure a firewall on the router. Most modern routers come with integrated firewalls that can block or allow certain types of traffic. Use this function to block potentially harmful websites and only allow the passage of reliable sources.

In most cases, these seven steps should be enough to keep your office wifi secure. For added security, you can use advanced encryption through WPA-Enterprise mode, hide your wifi SSID, etc. At the same time, make sure that the router and associated devices are in a secure environment that only trusted people can physically access. 

Also Read: These 5 Cybersecurity Tips Will Helps You To Secure Your Restaurant Business