It amazes us how many networks out there are still unsecured, more specifically how much the giving spirit is still in effect across the world. People unknowingly or by way of laziness sharing their Internet and personal files with each other just warms our hearts but in all honesty it needs to stop! Here is a real world example, this literally happened to us a few years back.

It was a cold winter night in January here in Wisconsin, we were watching a freshly downloaded yet to be released movie in our living room and the doorbell rang. This was odd as were not used to that many visitors so cautiously we opened the door and it was our nice neighbor from next door looking sort of distressed. Being Wisconsin thoughts of dead car batteries, frozen car doors, and lost keys raced through our mind but what came out of her mouth next amazed us. She quickly proclaimed “what’s wrong with the internet? I am working on some homework and I need it!” This struck us as pretty odd seeing as though we had never met her before. The funny thing was the night before we had locked down our wireless connection finally after months of skipping it because we were just lazy.

Besides the fact we couldn’t understand how someone would actually do that, not steal internet we totally get that, but actually go to their house madly and complain it wasn’t working. It also opened our eyes to exactly how many people do not lock down their wireless connections. Below are three reasons you need to protect your home or office by making your wireless network protected.

Security- This one is the obvious big one, there are a lot worse things people could do than just steal free internet from you. By leaving your network open and unprotected you are making it a lot easier for people to hack your personal computers. In addition, what is to stop someone from connecting to your wireless and downloading loads of stolen movies and music, nothing, and guess who’s name is on that account and who the FCC is going to look for when they find out. Don’t be silly lock down your internet.

Performance-If you have loads of other people connecting to your network it is going to slow down, you could have people downloading over your connection all day and never know.

No Freebies!- Look in some cases you may work something out with a neighbor to split the bill, or you may want to help them out and that is a little different, you can still do that with a secured network just share the pass code with them. At least if you set it up like that you’re not sharing your internet and potentially your personal files with anyone within 100 feet. Make those leeches pay, you have to!

Setting Up Wireless Security On Your Home Network

Setting up wireless security is very easy. You simply log into your router and enable it. If you use something new like a Linksys or DLink there is most likely a disc that came with your router that shows you how to do it. We wish we could just explain how to do it right here but the truth is most routers are unique. If you need help you could post below however.

Bottom line is enabling security on your wireless network is as easy as a click of a mouse and you just don’t have to worry about anything bad happening. A bit of advice however, store your wireless key in several places. We have a printed copy we keep in the router box, but also keep a copy on our USB memory stick. It is a total pain if you lose this and ever need it again. While it isn’t a total disaster you will still have to manually reset the routers settings and enable the security settings again. Also remember you will not be able to turn wireless security on from a computer that is wireless connected. For this task you will need to run a cable from your PC to the router, or just move the router up to your computer to configure it.