Top 10 Security Checklist for SOHO Wireless LANs

Corporations, government agencies, the military, and enterprises—in fact all medium-to-largescale wireless LANs have a different set of security requirements from the wireless LAN used in your home or in small offices. Enterprise wireless security requires advanced mutual authentication and strong encryption solutions.

But what is needed to properly secure a home or small office wireless network? Below is a list of ten simple steps the average SOHO user can take to secure their own wireless networks. The first and biggest mistake that most users of home and small office wireless networks make is that they just power up the box and leave all the default configuration settings enabled on the home wireless gateway device. The two most obvious default settings would be the SSID and the administrator login name/password. The SSID (Service Set Identifier) is the "name" of your wireless network comparable to a Windows workgroup name.