When choosing an SSID, you should also avoid names that give away
your location, such as your street address or the name of your business.
An intruder??”or WiFi leech, for that matter??”might exploit that extra
information to boost his or her own signal or, worse, break into your
network.
11. Next, check to see whether the Wireless SSID Broadcast option is
turned on or off, and make sure it??™s set the way you want it.
Opinions differ on whether turning off SSID broadcast is a
good or bad idea. Your SSID is a backdoor to your wireless
network; if you broadcast your SSID, you expose one more
piece of information someone could use to connect to your
network. If it??™s hidden (and you??™ve chosen a unique name),
you make it that much harder for someone to break in. On
the other hand, a hidden SSID doesn??™t necessarily guarantee
an invisible network; in fact, certain settings in Windows can
be exploited to expose your hidden SSID, as described in the
next section, ???Sniff Out WiFi Hotspots.??? So, don??™t rely solely
on a hidden SSID to protect your wireless network.
When you??™re done here, click Apply or Save Settings.
Figure 7-6. Use your router??™s wireless setup page to configure the security settings for
your wireless network
354 | Chapter 7: Networking and Internet
12. Next, you??™ll want to set up your router??™s encryption feature for the best
wireless security. You can typically get to this setting by clicking a button
on the wireless page named Encryption, WEP, or??”in the case of
the example in Figure 7-6??”a separate tab named Wireless Security.
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