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Up Your Wi-Fi Security with Five Pro Tips

Ready to up your Wi-Fi security game? Eric Geier has five pro tips that the big outfits use, guaranteed to provide that extra level of protection.

If you've done any Google-ing on Wi-Fi security, you probably have the basics beaten into you: Don't use WEP, use WPA or WPA2, disable SSID broadcasting, change default settings, and so on. Therefore we'll forgo the basics and skip to other ways you might be able to increase the security of your wireless network. Lets get started!

#1 Move to enterprise encryption

If you created a WPA or WPA2 encryption key of any type and must enter it when connecting to the wireless network, you are only using the Personal or Pre-shared key (PSK) mode of Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). Business networks--no matter how small or big--should be protected with the Enterprise mode, which adds 802.1X/EAP authentication to the wireless connection process. Instead of entering the encryption key on all the computers, users would login with a username and password. The encryption keys are derived securely in the background and are unique for each user and session.

This method provides central management and overall better Wi-Fi security.

Instead of loading the encryption keys onto computers where employees and other users can recover them, each user logs into the network with their own account when using the Enterprise mode. You can easily change or revoke access when needed. This is especially useful when employees leave the company or a laptop is stolen. If you're using the Personal mode, you'd have to manually change the encryption keys on all the computers and access points (APs).

Read "Better Wi-Fi Network Security: Advanced Techniques" at Datamation

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