Just tightened up my wifi

Bought a Windows magazine today (£6.95 gasp) and in it was an article about tightening up security on wifi.

2 things I have done on my DSL-N55U is populate the MAC filter and turn on the MAC filtering. The other thing is to assign static IPs for DHCP assingnment and populate that list too.

I tried hiding my SSID but my windows phones couldnt connect to wifi with this hidden so had to leave that on.

Anything else I could do?

In reply to a post by Banger:

2 things I have done on my DSL-N55U is populate the MAC filter and turn on the MAC filtering. The other thing is to assign static IPs for DHCP assingnment and populate that list too.

I tried hiding my SSID but my windows phones couldnt connect to wifi with this hidden so had to leave that on.

All those things are a complete waste of time, adds very very little extra security. Obviously whoever wrote that in the magazines is an idiot if they claimed it will improve wifi security significantly.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Anything else I could do?

Use WPA2 PSK with a reasonably long passphrase and you'll be fine, keep the router firmware updated.

Then you're golden.

Already done.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

In reply to a post by Banger:

2 things I have done on my DSL-N55U is populate the MAC filter and turn on the MAC filtering. The other thing is to assign static IPs for DHCP assingnment and populate that list too.

I tried hiding my SSID but my windows phones couldnt connect to wifi with this hidden so had to leave that on.

All those things are a complete waste of time, adds very very little extra security. Obviously whoever wrote that in the magazines is an idiot if they claimed it will improve wifi security significantly.

I should think if you have Mac filtering switch on then it would be more difficult for someone to use your Wi-Fi and if you hide your SSID then it would be difficult for someone to know you have Wi-fi.

Myself, I just reduced the power on my router, get outside my gate and the signal falls pretty quickly, so no chance of anyone sat in a car will be able to use it.

Can still detect the wifi even if beaocn is switched off and there is something called mac address spoofing. It's a total waste of time switching these features on on home wifi networks and leads to problems like the OP mentioned when turning the SSID off.

Cant hide SSID as my Windows phones cant find it and connect. MAC filtering maybe useful as I can see next doors wifi on my phone.

I dislike hidding SSIDs, it takes very little effort to find using right tools and makes it difficult to identify potential clashing networks on same channel from just Windows provided tools.

Depends where you live aswell as to how "secure" you need your wifi. Where i live there are only half a dozen houses within range of my router, and half of those have elderly people living in them with no internet access. Infact there are only 4 other networks i can pick up from where i live

Not a place we get alot of through traffic either

Yep, agree. Just make sure you use WPA2 and have a good password. The rest is an inconvenience to you not a hacker.