Working from home has its advantages, including no commute, a more flexible work schedule and fresh coffee and home-cooked meals whenever you want.
Laptop Battery But working from home while using a wireless local area network (WLAN) may lead to theft of sensitive information and hacker or virus infiltration unless proper measures are taken. As WLANs send information over radio waves, someone with a receiver in your area could be picking up the transmission, thus gaining access to your computer.
Yes, when the computer that is physically wired to the wireless gateway is used to set up the home network. The Home Network Install CD automates the installation of device drivers for a computer that is wired to the gateway via a USB cable, and configures the network settings (including wireless security parameters) for the home network. There is no need to run The Home Network Install CD on secondary computers that are attached to the wireless gateway via physical wire. These computers will simply connect to the shared Internet connection provided through the gateway’s integral broadband modem.
Thinkpad They could load viruses on to your laptop which could be transferred to the company's network when you go back to work.
Use this as your 'gateway' to connect multiple computers, including laptops, to your wireless network.
Microsoft Up to 75 per cent of WLAN users do not have standard security features installed, while 20 per cent are left completely open as default configurations are not secured, but made for the users to have their network up and running ASAP.
• Access Point (Infrastructure) The computer tries to connect to networks using a wireless access point. This setting gives you more security, Fi hotspots. • Computer (Ad Hoc) The computer tries to connect to other computers, called ad hoc networking. 6. If you want to automatically log on to any available wireless network, Preferred Networks check box.
Laptop Computers It is recommended that wireless router/access point setup be always done though a wired client.
Home wireless routers allow you to connect your home computers together into a network. If you want to use your router as a firewall also, in firewall. Otherwise, you can purchase a firewall separately. Wireless network routers will allow you to connect computers, notebook computers, PDAs and printers without wires. They are also useful for connecting laptops to the Internet and other networks, such as at work or at home.
Laptop Computer Change default administrative password on wireless router/access point to a secured password.
Yes, when the computer that is physically wired to the wireless gateway is used to set up the home network. The Home Network Install CD automates the installation of device drivers for a computer that is wired to the gateway via a USB cable, and configures the network settings (including wireless security parameters) for the home network.
Desktop Computer Enable at least 128-bit WEP encryption on both card and access point. Change your WEP keys periodically. If equipment does not support at least 128-bit WEP encryption, consider replacing it.
Notebooks Although there are security issues with WEP, it represents minimum level of security, and it should be enabled.
Lenovo Change the default SSID on your router/access point to a hard to guess name. Setup your computer device to connect to this SSID by default.
Hard Drive Setup router/access point not to broadcast the SSID. The same SSID needs to be setup on the client side manually. This feature may not be available on all equipment.
Travelstar Block anonymous Internet requests or pings.
Gateway On each computer having wireless network card, network connection properties should be configured to allow connection to Access Point Networks Only. Computer to Computer (peer to peer) Connection should not be allowed.
Laptop Parts Enable MAC filtering. Deny association to wireless network for unspecified MAC addresses. Mac or Physical addresses are available through your computer device network connection setup and they are physically written on network cards. When adding new wireless cards / computer to the network, their MAC addresses should be registered with the router /access point.
Software Network router should have firewall features enabled and demilitarized zone (DMZ) feature disabled.
Hard Drives You can test your hardware and personal firewalls using Shields Up test available at http://www.grc.com
Electronics All computers should have a properly configured personal firewall in addition to a hardware firewall.
Canon Update router/access point firmware when new versions become available.
Desktop Pc Locate router/access point away from strangers so they cannot reset the router/access point to default settings.
Desktop Computers Locate router/access point in the middle of the building rather than near windows to limit signal coverage outside the building.
Think Pad While none of the measure suggested above provides full protection as counter measures exist, a collection of suggested measures will act as a deterrent against attacker when other insecure networks represent easier targets.
The author of this article ia a software developer, consultant and author of numerous books. Visit his site for more infomation about the Top Spyware Removal Software.
