Secure Wireless “WiFi” Settings

The use of wireless routers in the home and business is increasing all the time. Many of the default settings for wireless routers make the wireless network increasingly vulnerable to others being able to use your wireless network without your knowledge. In some sense you could say, “Who cares”, but if they use your Internet connection to carry on malicious activities, then your IP address may be blacklisted or your account temporarily closed.

Here’s some settings that will help secure your wireless network. (Nothing is totally secure, so there’s no guarantee that this will stop everyone)

For wireless security, use WPA2 authentication type with PSK and a Cipher type of AES or TKIP (many routers give you an “auto” setting). Make the Passphrase strong by using several words together in a phrase instead of a single password. Microsoft recommends a six-word passphrase, at a very minimum, use a 10-12 character random character password that uses lower and upper case letters and a mix of numbers and special characters.

Reference:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512624.aspx

Secure Email Settings

With continued attention on computer security, enabling SSL encryption in uploading and downloading your email is a smart move that many Internet email providers offer.

Comcast offers SSL encryption for their customers using POP3 servers, here is the settings.

Incoming mail server: mail.comcast.net, Port 995
Outgoing mail server: smtp.comcast.net, Port 465
Security connection: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Encrypted Password

Google offers the same security capability with their Gmail service. You do however have to enable it under Settings and then select “Always use https” under Browser connection

Many if not all of today’s smart phones support secure email connections.