Other guidelines
To keep the wireless network secure, follow these guidelines:
•
Use a password with at least 20 random characters. You can use up to 63
characters in a WPA password.
•
Avoid any common words or phrases, easy sequences of characters (such as all
1s), and personally-identifiable information for passwords. Always use random
strings composed of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and if allowed,
special characters such as punctuation.
•
Change the password periodically.
•
Change the default password provided by the manufacturer for administrator
access to the access point or wireless router. Some routers let you change the
administrator name as well.
•
Place the access point or router in the center of a room and not near a window.
•
Turn off administrative access over wireless if possible. If you do this, you need to
connect to the router with a wired Ethernet connection when you want to make
configuration changes.
•
Turn off remote administrative access over the Internet on your router, if possible.
You can use Remote Desktop to make an encrypted connection to a computer
running behind your router and make configuration changes from the local
computer you are accessing over the Internet.
•
To avoid accidentally connecting to another party's wireless network, turn off the
setting to automatically connect to non-preferred networks. This is disabled by
default in Windows XP.