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3. ADSL Wireless Router Security - Speedtouch 586 (C&W) Routers.

1. Netgear D834G Router
2. ZyXEL 600 Series (Newtel)
3. Speedtouch 586 (Cable & Wireless)   
4. 3 Com Routers

Connecting to Wireless Network form a Laptop

Introduction

The very first thing you should do after installing a Router is change the default password. Without doing this everything else becomes a waste of time because all makes of router have a default username and password pre-installed and these are very widely known. For eg the username for most netgear routers out of the box is “admin” and the password is “password”, it's that simple. Buffalo, Linksys etc have similar setups see this site for a complete list of all default router user/passwords.

http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html

Anybody with access to your machine can log into the router and set it up to allow remote access in minutes, from there your network is an open book.

There are two types of Wireless Encryption, WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy) and WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre Shared Key). WEP is easy to break remotely and is not secure, it's just a straight password. WPA is a lot more sophisticated and should be used if at all possible.

How to Set up Secure Wireless using WPA Encryption

3. Speedtouch 586 (Cable & Wireless) Routers

With thanks to Bigbro who supplied the screenshots and information.

First make sure your router is set up and online by using the supplied instructions from Cable & Wireless, they should set it up on installation and supply a CD which guides you through the initial setup process. When it is online and functioning correctly do the following to secure the wireless networking. But first before anything else change the default password for your router otherwise any security you apply is a total waste of time.

1. Change Default Password

Log into your router with a browser, type 192.168.1.254 and press the return key. When you get to the main screen look for "Toolbox" in the left hand panel, click on it and you will see the following screen.

2. Click on "User Management as shown in the screen-shot below.

3. Click on "Change my password" task link.

4. OK fill in the boxes. There is no "Old Password" leave it blank, fill in new password and repeat in the confirm box. Use lower case letters and numbers - no spaces 8 to 10 characters is enough for a home router. Then click on "Change Password" button.

Finally close down your browser / restart it then follow the secure wireless setup below.

2. Secure Wireless Setup

1. Log into your router setup screen by opening a browser and typing 192.168.1.254 into the address bar then press the return key. You will now be propmted for your new password as you have changed it above. If it asks for a username as well the user name is "Administrator". Once logged in it will will bring up the following screen Look at the bottom for Home Network and click on the "Wireless" link.

2. When you get the following screen click on the "Configure" link - top right.

3. On this screen you need to set up the security and password, at the bottom of the screen you will see 3 buttons, click the "Use WPA-PSK Encryption" button as shown, then click on the WPA-PSK Version drop down and select WPA+WPA2 from the choices.

4. Now set the passphrase in the WPA-PSK Encryption Key Box, use letters and numbers about 10 or more, the longer the phrase the better the encryption.

5. Next change the "Network Name (SSID)"to something else and ensure the "Interface Enabled" box is checked as shown. wlan-585 is not much good every speedtouch 585 in the world will call itself that by default if your next door neighbour has one as well it will cause major confusion.

6. Next when all is as shown in the screenshots above click on the "Apply" button.

OK thats the router configuration completed. Log out of the router configuration by shutting down the browser. It is a good idea to re-boot the router at this point by pulling the power, couunting 10, plug it in again and wait till it runs up and re-connects to the internet, then check internet connectivity is working and reboot your PC.

Next you need to set up your Laptop to connect to the secure wireless connection.

Connecting to Wireless Network