Wireless connections are no longer a fancy new toy to fiddle with. These days, with the ever increasing reach of this medium of transmission, its security is gradually becoming quite an important issue as well. Wireless networks can be even less secure than wired networks, because anyone who has the most basic kinds of wireless network equipment at his disposal can tap into virtually any wireless network within range. This makes this type of networks particularly vulnerable to hackers. In fact, nearly 50% of all users of wireless connection are in fact connecting to the internet through unsecured connections, unknowingly exposing themselves to hackers and worms.

The good news here is that wireless networks are surprisingly easy to secure against hackers. Even if you have little or no technical knowledge, you can make a wireless network secure in little time. Here are the top 5 ways of securing your wireless network in a jiffy.

1. Secure your access point administration interface: The access point of your wireless router is usually protected with a weak, default password. Nothing can be more dangerous than this. The default passwords of most standard devices are already known to most hackers. So, the first thing to do would be to change the default password. When you set up your router through the web interface, you will get an option to change your administrator password. Do it now, and write the password down somewhere safe, where you will be able to access it if you forget it later on.
2. Stop broadcasting your SSID: Your wireless router continuously transmits your SSID (Service Set Identifier). While this is useful in an office where many people is going to connect to your network, at home this is certainly not needed. Turn SSID transmission off as soon as you can. Wireless LAN “sniffers” will still be able to detect your network, but other than that, your network will mostly be shrouded from outsiders.
3. Use MAC address filtering: Turn on MAC address filtering on your wireless router configuration utility. By doing so, you can add the MAC addresses of all of your networking devices to the address pool of the router. This way, no one outside your home network will be able to access your network.
4. Reduce the power of transmission: Reduce the power of your wireless transmitter to such a degree that the signal does not reach outside your home. This will keep most outsiders at bay.
5. Disable remote administration tool: Your remote administration utility is seldom used. So, keeping it on exposes your network to outsiders. Turn it off for enhance your network security.

These 5 points are the things you must do to secure your wireless network. Keep your network secured and keep hackers and other malicious users at bay.