How To Secure Your Home Network
A quick guide that anyone with a home network should read.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News
As the number of homes with broadband and multiple PCs increases, so do the
number of small, generally insecure networks. These little pockets of
high-speed connected systems are ripe targets for hackers and viruses looking
for vectors to launch attacks from. While a few years ago, home networks
were the realm of the geeky, the sort of people who had somewhat of a clue as to
what they were doing, today anyone can walk into a Wal-Mart and buy a wireless
router for $50 and suddenly their entire home is networked! However, while
it's easy to setup, it's not so easy to secure, and most people never take the
time to ensure the safety of their home network.
Your information is only as safe as the weakest link in the chain. It's much easier for someone to steal your credit card information from your home PC than it is for them to break into your bank's online system.
InformationWeek has an 8 step guide to securing a small size network. They create a fictional network of 4-8 PCs, some wired, some wireless spread over a 600 square foot area. The principles outlined in the article though will work to secure any size network, large or small.
MarkSnyder61
Reply #3 Tuesday, March 6, 2007 1:30 PM
Reply #3 Tuesday, March 6, 2007 1:30 PM
Good info for all the home networks to pay close attention to. With IPv6 now out there, there are a lot more networks available and the hackers are looking for these open holes. Hardening your system is now more than ever essential to maintaining a healthy and smooth flowing network. A great firewall using NAT also will help and if you need to you can use a good DMZ setup as well. Nothing is absolute in protection but keeping on top of maintaining the network , changing passwaords frequently should do the trick. 
Drop125
Reply #4 Wednesday, March 7, 2007 11:44 AM
Reply #4 Wednesday, March 7, 2007 11:44 AM
Nice info, But the real problem is that of those elitest manufacturers...I have a degree in Computer and electronic sciences, but alot of times if you have two diffrent manufactures the products do not work hand in hand at all...I spent 2 hours just setting up encryption on a Linksys to Airlink wireless card..The linksys routers do not like to let anyone elses cards on there acces points...takes a good long time to even get the acces point visible so you can even see it when you do a scan...too bad they are the ones creating all these Unsecure networks...Until all the manufactures step up and address this issue there will always be security problems...Oh and Im sure some idiot here will jump all over this and tell me what a dumbass I am so whatever...But it is a fact the instructions that come with them are very difficult even when they simplify it..After following the instructions to the letter it still took 3 uninstals and reinstalls of my Microsft Card and Access point to get it to work after 3 hours I was finally able to surf the net safely..However when I installed my Airlink101 base and card it was literally 15 minutes later and I was encrypted and secure..Lynksys I have never been able to get confugured at all...So lets review...
Airlink took less than 15 minutes
D-Link crashed on install and damaged my partitions
Lynksys has never been an easy instal along with Microsoft.
Airlink101 is the cheapest out there.
all the rest were fairly pricey....I dont get it at all...
Airlink took less than 15 minutes
D-Link crashed on install and damaged my partitions
Lynksys has never been an easy instal along with Microsoft.
Airlink101 is the cheapest out there.
all the rest were fairly pricey....I dont get it at all...
MarkSnyder61
Reply #5 Wednesday, March 7, 2007 7:50 PM
Reply #5 Wednesday, March 7, 2007 7:50 PM
One problem I had was I upgraded from a Microsoft Wireless B router to a Linksys (Cisco) Wireless G Modem/Router, I had to make sure my ISP had the new MAC address and serial number of the new Modem before they would let it access their Network, then it took about 30 minutes for their Active Directory to replicate before I was able to surf again.
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
Reply #1 Tuesday, March 6, 2007 12:31 PM