Secure Your Wireless Network

To secure your wireless computers within your network, you need to proactively protect your data and keep your systems safe. The first step in securing your network is to use the standard built-in features found in your gear. Most networking devices have built-in security features to keep hackers at bay; but in most cases, it is not enough security. Thankfully, most broadband routers have Network Address Translation (NAT) security and Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering, but make sure these features are included. Routers with NAT hide internal network IP addresses (which add a layer of network security). MAC address filtering features allows you to enter the MAC addresses you want to grant or deny access to your network.

Typically, wireless-networking devices are inclusive of WEP and WPA encryption features. Both of these forms of encryption are beneficial in protecting your network. But, keep in mind, the WPA is more secure than the WEP feature. To use either one of these encryption features, you need to enter an encryption key to all wireless devices in your network. Product user manuals explain how to do this. Even though most home office networks and small businesses do not use authentication features for their local computers, most large businesses choose to use it for their office LANs (i.e. 802.1x or LEAP).

The second step is to get a hardware firewall for your network. A hardware firewall works the same way as a software firewall but there are certain other advantages. Whereas a software firewall must be installed on each computer in your network, a hardware firewall centralizes the control of connections between your network and the Internet. Hardware firewalls are more effective than software firewalls in that they can make multiple computers play by the same rules at the same time. In addition, hardware firewalls use their own processors for port filtering and encryption tasks, which means that there is little or no resource drain on the computers in your network, giving you better overall performance. Some firewalls allow you to set-up VPN connections from the Internet to your personal LAN, providing you with a secure way to access your computers while you're on the road.

Because Cisco's PIX security appliances have multi-vector attack protection services, they can effectively defend businesses from many popular forms of attacks, such as: denial-of-service (D0S) attacks, fragmented attacks, replay attacks, and malformed packet attacks. The benefits deriving from PIX firewalls are: improved productivity, lower operational costs, and increased competitive advantage.