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Even if you only use WiFi from a secure home network, you can never be completely sure that your connection is protected and safe from outsiders. Instead of crossing your fingers, hoping for the best, but not being 100 percent certain that your WiFi is impenetrable, there are steps you can take to create a more secure network.
This is the one WiFI setting you should turn on ASAP, according to security experts.
Your first WiFi step should always be to create the most complex password you can — one that includes a mix of upper and lowercase letters, with numbers and symbols. But even after you have invented a complicated password, there are additional ways to ensure your connection isn’t hacked into.
Hiding your network name won’t keep all hackers from breaking into your WiFi, but it sill definitely help, reports Tech Radar.
“Wi-Fi access points are usually configured by default to broadcast the name of your wireless network - known as the service set identifier, or SSID — to make it easy to find and connect to. But the SSID can be also be set to ‘hidden’ so that you have to know the name of the network before you can connect to it,” reports Tech Radar.
Here are the steps you need to take to hide your network name if you use Linksys, according to Chron:
1. Open "http://192.168.1.1" (without quotation marks) from a browser. Enter "admin" into the "User Name" and "Password" fields to log in to your router.
2. Select "Wireless," then "Basic Wireless Settings" from the menus. Set "SSID Broadcast" to "Disabled" (if your router operates on a dual band, do this for both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz configurations).
3. Click "Save Settings" to hide your SSID.
Depending on your WiFi system (Netgear, D-Link, etc), the steps you need to take will differ (but most are available via this link).
Hide your network, use a secure WPA password, and provide a separate network and password for guests — these three actions will minimize the likelihood that anyone with malicious intent (or anyone at all) stays off of your WiFi connection.
