Every technological platform is evolving with time, with portability and security emerging as the major areas of concern. This trend has been affirmed with the advent of WiFi networks in recent years. WiFi networks have become so prevalent nowadays that be it may be any locality, either urban or suburban, you are bound to find one or more networks. Hence WiFi security has become a very important issue nowadays.

WiFi networks offer portability, which is a very essential factor in various circumstances, some of them would be like the following:-

·        With WiFi tethering integrated in most smartphones, one can share their internet connection with another authorized user by creating a new WiFi network and allowing the user to connect and use the WiFi network.

·        Files can be transferred over an Adhoc (Temporary) WiFi network.

·         Communicate over a WiFi network through messages

·        Using  a WiFi network to propagate an internet connection across a particular area

WiFi networks offer a lot of convenience to its users, and are really easy to set up, but they are not without their drawbacks. I shall proceed to explain a major security concern of WiFi networks by an example. For a WiFi network setup at home, the range of the WiFi network extends well beyond the premises. So all an attacker needs to do is to bring his or her device in range of the WiFi network, run a software and voila!!! Within a few minutes the password of the WiFi network is known to that person. Hence our WiFi network, and consequently our personal network, in case of multiple systems running on the WiFi network, are prone to compromise.

So it is important to implement WiFi security in our networks. Wouldn’t it be a nuisance if someone else accessed your WiFi and logged on to the internet without your knowledge?! Fortunately, WiFi security requires just a few basic steps, and preferably should be employed at the time of setting up the WiFi network.

    1.    Set the WiFi security type to WPA2-PSK and encryption to AES
Quite a few WiFi networks run on WEP, which can be hacked pretty easily using basic tools. WPA2-PSK is till date the hardest to crack, and should be used on all WiFi networks. This can be configured at the WiFi access point. A standard procedure is hard to define as the device may differ as per the user.

    2.    WPS function should be switch off
Many WiFi access points have this feature switched on by default. This should be turned off as it is another very common compromise point in WiFi security.

    3.    Set a very strong password
As with all security procedures, setting a strong password goes a long way towards implementing WiFi security. A good password policy would include atleast 10 characters, with numbers, digits and special characters. This would make the password harder to guess, and thus would be the most important way to secure for WiFi security.

Please note that these parameters can be configured only at the WiFi access point, and the process for the same would depend on the person’s WiFi device. In other words, WiFi security would depend on the user's scenario. Ensuring that these three factors are met would make your WiFi network a lot more secure than before.