-: In this video, I want to show you how 2 2
to set up a wireless router using the proper settings. 3 3
That means, we're going to be doing things like 4 4
MAC filtering, setting the broadcast to disabled, 5 5
and putting in a WPA2. 6 6
So, as we go through, I'm going to use this 7 7
Wireless-N wireless router. 8 8
This is a standard wireless router you might find 9 9
at Best Buy or Office Depot or some place like that 10 10
and it's probably what you have 11 11
something like this at home. 12 12
This is a standard model that's going to have 13 13
a wireless access point, a router, 14 14
and a switch built in. 15 15
So, as you can see, I have four different ports 16 16
plus the WAN connection which will connect 17 17
to my cable modem or my fiber modem. 18 18
Now, what I'm going to do is switch over 19 19
into the display and you'll be able 20 20
to see my computer as we go through 21 21
and configure this device. 22 22
So, I'm on my desktop computer and I've opened 23 23
up my network preferences. 24 24
This shows me that I'm currently connected 25 25
over ethernet directly to that wireless access point 26 26
because it has those four switch ports, 27 27
I'm plugged into port number one. 28 28
I received a DHCP IP address, 29 29
as you can see here, 192.168.1.2 30 30
and the router is 192.168.1.1, 31 31
so for me to be able to configure this 32 32
wireless access point, I'm going to go 33 33
and type in that IP address, 34 34
that router IP address, into a web browser 35 35
because most of these home access devices 36 36
are going to allow you to have a web-based configuration. 37 37
So, here I go 192.168.1.1 and it brings up 38 38
a Netgear Genie which is this model 39 39
of router that I'm using. 40 40
So, do I want to use the genie to help me? 41 41
I'm going to say no, we're going to configure this ourself. 42 42
Now, currently, I do not have my cable modem 43 43
or fiber modem plugged in so there will be 44 44
no connection to the Internet, 45 45
but I do want to go through and configure 46 46
the wireless settings. 47 47
So, I'm going to start by clicking on Wireless 48 48
and under here you can see the first thing 49 49
that we want to turn off which is Enable SSID Broadcast. 50 50
According to the Network+ exam 51 51
and the Security+ exam, you should 52 52
disable the SSID broadcast because this 53 53
is essentially your wireless access point 54 54
going out and saying, hey, hey I'm over here, 55 55
connect to me, my name is blank. 56 56
We don't want to do that, so instead we're 57 57
going to turn that off which means 58 58
that each device in your area, 59 59
you're going to have to actually type in 60 60
the name of the network for them to connect. 61 61
Then, do we want to have Wireless Isolation? 62 62
I'm going to say yes. 63 63
Now, the reason why is I'm using a Wireless-N 64 64
router in this case. 65 65
Wireless-N and Wireless-AC do support 66 66
Wireless Isolation, this allows it 67 67
to act more like a switch and less like a hub 68 68
and that's what we'd like. 69 69
So, we're going to go ahead and give it a name, 70 70
and what is this SSID going to be called? 71 71
I'm going to go ahead and call it Diontestwap, 72 72
that's fine, and then it has you select 73 73
the region, I'm in North America 74 74
cause I'm in the United States, 75 75
and you can either auto select the channel 76 76
or specifically select the channel you want based 77 77
on one through 11 if your running Wireless-B or G. 78 78
Now, I'm going to let it auto select 79 79
for me based on what is in my area, 80 80
but if that was a problem, I could always go back 81 81
and select one of the three most common channels 82 82
that give us that separation, channel one, 83 83
channel six, or channel 11. 84 84
Next, I'm going to look at mode, 85 85
and mode tells me how fast it's going to operate, 86 86
am I going to be operating under Wireless-B or G, 87 87
which would be 54 or can I go up 88 88
to 150, which would be a mixed mode between G and N 89 89
or can I go up to 300 which would give me just a Wireless-N? 90 90
In my case, I do want to have this mixed mode 91 91
because maybe I have some older devices 92 92
that are still using Wireless-G 93 93
and so, we'll do that. 94 94
Then, we're going to look at our security options. 95 95
Are we going to have no security, 96 96
meaning, no password is needed? 97 97
Now, sometimes, you may want that. 98 98
For example, at our offices, we have a 99 99
wireless network called dionguest, 100 100
it has no password, you can go ahead 101 101
and connect to it, and it's going to give 102 102
you direct connection out to the Internet. 103 103
It's isolated and there's nothing 104 104
touching our network, it just gives you direct access out. 105 105
But if you're setting this up for your home, 106 106
you want to have a password cause you don't 107 107
want somebody connecting into it 108 108
and then touching your other devices. 109 109
So, on this particular wireless access point, it only 110 110
supports two different types of encryption, WPA or WPA2. 111 111
Notice, WEP isn't here, why is that? 112 112
Well, because WEP is easy to crack 113 113
and I'm going to show you that in a separate video. 114 114
But for right now, we have to choose 115 115
between WPA and WPA2. 116 116
Do we want WPA with a pre-shared key 117 117
and using TKIP or do we want WPA2 118 118
with a pre-shared key using AES, 119 119
or do we want to support both of those, 120 120
or do we want to support an enterprise mode? 121 121
Well, if we're a home user, we're probably 122 122
going to go for the most secure and easiest to use 123 123
which is WPA2 with a pre-shared key using AES. 124 124
And here's where you're going to choose 125 125
some long passphrase and you want it 126 126
to be something long and complicated 127 127
and maybe it's something like that, I don't know. 128 128
Or, maybe you have it as a long sentence, 129 129
whatever it is you want to have something 130 130
between eight and 63 characters 131 131
and you want it to be long and complex 132 132
because that lengthens the time it takes 133 133
for somebody to break into it. 134 134
So, we're going to go ahead and hit apply 135 135
and that'll save those settings. 136 136
Now, there wasn't a whole lot of in-depth 137 137
setting here, right? 138 138
They only gave me very basic things 139 139
because they're trying to keep it easy 140 140
for the consumer. 141 141
What I want to do is I want to go to the Advance tab though 142 142
and see if there's any more in-depth settings 143 143
that we might be able to use. 144 144
So, now that I went to Advanced, 145 145
I'm going to go to Setup and I'm going to go to Wireless 146 146
and we're going to see what settings we have. 147 147
Again, there's not much there. 148 148
Now, if I go to Guest Network, 149 149
this particular access point allows me 150 150
to have two different networks. 151 151
I can have one for my personal and one for guest 152 152
and the guest can connect and go directly 153 153
out to the Internet, just as in the example 154 154
I gave you at our business offices. 155 155
So, maybe you want to do that for your friends 156 156
and you're going to call it friendguestnetwork 157 157
and you're going to allow isolation 158 158
and you're going to enable this guest network 159 159
and you're going to allow it to be broadcast. 160 160
We're not going to allow guests to access 161 161
your local area network, though. 162 162
We want them to go directly to the Internet 163 163
and not touch anything inside your network. 164 164
And we can go ahead and set that up. 165 165
Another thing we might want to do 166 166
is we might want to use MAC filtering. 167 167
So, if I want to enable MAC filtering, 168 168
I need to find it first, and I believe 169 169
it's under Advanced Setup here. 170 170
And then, we're going to go down here 171 171
and find it under Wireless Settings. 172 172
And then under Wireless Settings, 173 173
they call it wireless card access list 174 174
and if I set up this access list, 175 175
I can actually turn it on and only 176 176
allow certain MAC addresses to be able 177 177
to connect to this wireless network. 178 178
So, the good thing about this is it will keep out 179 179
people who don't know you're using MAC filtering. 180 180
The bad thing is, as a hacker or an attacker, 181 181
it only takes me about 30 seconds 182 182
to bypass MAC filtering and so really it's 183 183
a lot of work for you to be able 184 184
to keep somebody out for maybe 30 seconds. 185 185
But if you wanted to use it, you could go 186 186
through and do it and we might say 187 187
something like jasonsiphone, 188 188
and then his MAC address, whatever 189 189
that MAC address happens to be. 190 190
And now, if I add that, it's going 191 191
to allow that wireless network card 192 192
to be able to connect to my wireless network 193 193
and it will prevent everybody else 194 194
if I turn access control on. 195 195
Now, that's not my real MAC address, 196 196
so I'm not going to turn that on 197 197
but that's just an example of what you can do. 198 198
The other thing I want you to look at here 199 199
is WPS and WPS is something that was put 200 200
into routers to make it easy for people. 201 201
It's that button on the front 202 202
of your wireless router, or wireless access point 203 203
that you push the button on your device 204 204
and you push the button on the access point 205 205
and they'll automatically pair, 206 206
share this router PIN with each other 207 207
and then connect each other securely to the network. 208 208
In theory, this was a great thing 209 209
but unfortunately, it was easily hacked 210 210
and so, it's something you do want 211 211
to turn off for your best security. 212 212
You'll notice on my device here, 213 213
it doesn't give me the option of turning it off 214 214
and so, I'm going to have to dig deep 215 215
into the settings to turn this off. 216 216
Most likely, it's here under the WPS Wizard, 217 217
or under the Advanced Settings 218 218
and we would go through and turn off 219 219
that WPS if you're allowed to by your device. 220 220
The last thing I want to talk about here 221 221
is your remote management. 222 222
If you click on Remote Management, 223 223
this is something where it allows you 224 224
to connect to the device remotely over the Internet 225 225
through this web-based graphical interface. 226 226
Now, we're doing this locally on 192.168.1.1 227 227
and that's okay because you'd have 228 228
to be connected to my network first 229 229
to be able to access this device 230 230
and make these changes. 231 231
But if I turned remote management on, 232 232
I can actually give it an IP address 233 233
and allow anyone on the Internet 234 234
to be able to connect to this device and make changes. 235 235
Now, why would you want to do that? 236 236
Maybe you have set this up for your mother's house 237 237
and she's not very technically savvy 238 238
and every time she has a problem, 239 239
she's going to call you and ask you to fix it. 240 240
So, if that was the case, you might want to 241 241
turn this on, but you're going to want to configure 242 242
it to only allow certain computers 243 243
with certain IPS to be able to connect to it. 244 244
Again, the best practice here is 245 245
to turn off remote management 246 246
and you'll notice it was off by default 247 247
and keep it off to keep your device 248 248
the most secure it can be. 249 249
So, in summary, what are some of the big steps we did? 250 250
Well, we wanted to make sure we're using WPA2 251 251
with a good, long, strong, pre-shared key. 252 252
We want to disable the SSID broadcast 253 253
to make it harder for somebody to find our wireless network. 254 254
We want to enable Wireless Isolation 255 255
to keep those channels and frequencies 256 256
isolated from each other from people connecting 257 257
and make it act more like a switch and less like a hub. 258 258
We also want to enable MAC filtering 259 259
according to the exam, although honestly, 260 260
in reality, I usually don't do MAC filtering 261 261
because it's just more of a pain for me 262 262
and it really doesn't give me that much more security. 263 263
And finally, we want to disable the WPS 264 264
setting, if you're able to. 265 265
Again, WPS was a great idea for convenience 266 266
but it doesn't provide good security 267 267
and so, I would disable that anytime you can. 268 268
I hope you take these tips and you put them 269 269
to work in your own home or office network 270 270
and get yourself a little bit more secure.