When you set up a wireless network in your home or business it is important to secure the connection.  A Secured Network allows only authorized people to use your internet connection and access information on your network.  A Unsecured Network allows anyone near your home who has a wireless device to be able to use your internet connection to connect to the internet as well as access information on your network.

If you have an unsecured wireless network in your home, anyone in close proximity can monitor your online activities. Depending on how your home network is configured, someone could even gain full access to your computer’s hard drive over an unsecured wireless network.

Aside from the risk of people being able to gain access to your computer through an unsecured wireless network, your neighbors could sponge off of your Internet connection. This would not only deprive you of bandwidth that you are paying for, but if your neighbor conducted some illegal activity while online, it could be traced back to your network.

If your setting up a wireless network the link below contains some useful information and instructions that can aid in setting up a secure wireless network.

By far the most important thing that you can do to secure your wireless network is to use encryption. Almost every wireless access point has some type of encryption mechanism built in. Most older access points offer WEP encryption, and newer access points offer a choice between WEP and WPA.

WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), a security protocol for wireless local area networks. WEP aims to provide security by encrypting data over radio waves so that it is protected as it is transmitted from one end point to another.  Basically you are adding a password to your internet access so someone has to know the password to access your wireless network.   However, it has been found that WEP is not as secure as once believed. WEP is used at the two lowest layers of the OSI model (Open System Interconnection Model) - the data link and physical layers; it therefore does not offer end-to-end security.  Most new devices offer WPA which was invented to take the place of WEP due to its obvious security flaws.

WPA (WIFi Protected Access), a more secure form of encryption than its predecessor WEP. WPA operates using more layers of the OSI model making it true end-to-end security.  Protecting everything from Data Sent and Data Received to Information processed on and stored within your personal network.  If the option is available always choose WPA encryption over WEP to create a more secured network.

Don't Broadcast yourself.  Wi-Fi access points use a mechanism called identifier broadcasting to announce themselves.  When you broadcast your Wi-Fi access you are prompting other wireless device and telling them that you exist.  The problem with identifier broadcasting is that you already know that you have a wireless network, so there is no need in announcing it to you. The only people that the broadcast really benefits is hackers. Not all wireless access points allow you to disable identifier broadcasting, but if yours does allow you to disable it, then you should.

Change your Wireless Access Points Name.  While you are at it, you should also change your SSID or ESSID.  The SSID or ESSID is basically just a name that’s assigned to the router or device that you are using to access the internet wirelessly; such as Linksys. The reason why it is important to change the SSID or ESSID is because you don’t want your access point to have an out of the box name. Wireless hardware manufacturers assign the same SSID or ESSID to every access point that rolls off of the assembly line. Even if you aren’t broadcasting your access point’s identification to the world, it isn’t that hard to figure out that you have an access point in your house. If the access point isn’t broadcasting an SSID or an ESSID then the first thing that a hacker will usually try is to attach to the access point by using common default SSID or ESSID names.  By changing the name of your SSID or ESSID it will make your Wi-Fi access harder to find.

It is also important that you change your access point’s default password for the same reason. You don’t want a hacker to be able to take control of your access point just because it still has the default password assigned to it. If a hacker were to take control of the access point, they could actually lock you out of your own network.  For the same reason, changing your password frequently is a good idea.