How To Password-Protect Your Wireless Network

"We're acutely aware that we failed badly." These were the apologetic words of Google executive Alan Eustace after Google was accused of spying on households.

Google admitted that by antennae, its high-tech Street View cars had 'mistakenly collected' entire emails, web pages, and even passwords from ordinary households without knowledge or consent . Talk about invasion of privacy.

The Street View cars' antennae skips networks five times a second, meaning each network was only accessed for one-fifth of a second. That split-second was all it took to 'mistakenly collect' entire emails, web pages and passwords from unknowing people.

BUT, the information was only gathered from wireless networks which were NOT password-protected!

Google really failed on invasion of privacy, but what really was astonishing were the millions of unprotected wireless networks across the US and UK. We're not talking anymore about Google's invasion of privacy here, but a carelessness of people to password-protect their wireless networks and how this is a potential gold mine for criminals who aren't Google.

HOW TO PASSWORD-PROTECT YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK

Routers like Linksys and Netgear always have wireless security embedded in its products.

You can access these wireless security options by typing http://192.168.0.1 for Netgear or http://192.168.1.1 for Linksys on your browser's address bar (i.e. Firefox, IE8, Chrome). Other routers also follow suite with these address. Check your router's manual if you aren't sure.

For Netgear and Linksys, the default username to access the control panel is "admin" and the default password is "password" for Netgear and "admin" for Linksys.

Once you've successfully logged on to the control panel, proceed to Wireless Settings.

Here, you are presented with a list of Security options. They are:

• WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
• WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)
• WP2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key)

...and others.

Personally, I use the WPA-PSK over the WEP and WPA2-PSK. WPA-PSK is more secure than WEP. Although WPA2-PSK is more secure than WPA-PSK, some older laptops and smartphones do not have the capbility to access WPA2-PSK secured wireless networks, hence WPA-PSK.

The WPA-PSK security encryption network key must be a minimum of 8 characters to a maximum of 63.

A strong password uses a combination of CAPITAL and small letters and numbers. For example, a password with the characters Pass1234Word would take a hacker 10 million years to hack. Of course, you can't use these combination now since it's already posted, but you get the idea. To further check on the strength of your password, click HERE.

Once you've successfully password-protected your wireless network, you can take a breather but don't let your guard down. Regularly change the password on your wireless network. Better to be safe than sorry.