Make WiFi Passwords a Thing of the Past

The wireless router is something that has been around for a long time now, and you might still have yours from when you first got wireless Internet installed in your office. If this is the case, you owe it to yourself to upgrade to a newer model. Besides increasing the speed of your wireless connection, there are a few security benefits to updating your router.

The latest security technology available for WiFi networks is called WiFi-Protected Setup, which offers a variety of different methods that don't require passwords to increase both network security and ease of use.

Who Wants a Password, Anyway?
Seriously, they are overrated. They are the most common method of connecting a device to a wireless network, but hackers have been taking advantage of WiFi passwords for years. Hackers have developed sophisticated methods and technologies that can be used to pick even the strongest lock. Using Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) and brute force attacks, a hacker can spit out up to 8.2 billion password combinations per second and use them to try and access your network. If left to their agenda, they could probably crack the code.

WiFi With the Press of a Button
The fact remains that WiFi passwords are no longer nearly as secure as they used to be. However, there is a silver lining to this bad news. The world's top technical developers have been working on cool new ways to secure your network. One of these seems like an impossibly simple concept; tap-to-connect routers. These routers allow wireless connection with the press of a button. The button triggers a signal that is sent to your wireless device. It then prompts an authentication, and you're all set to browse the Internet at your leisure. The wonderful thing about these routers is that a hacker will have a difficult time accessing your Internet without breaking into your building and pressing the button himself!

This technology makes connecting to the Internet exponentially easier. Never again will you have to tell visitors what your WiFi password is - all you need to do is press the button, and the router will take care of the rest.

Don't Enter the Danger Zone!
If pressing a button wasn't convenient enough for you, there is also the Near Field Communication (NFC) system. A router equipped with this technology will be able to detect your device when it's nearby. After authentication, your device will automatically connect and log on to the Internet. ZDNet explains how this works:

Through the new NFC-enabled method, the router's configuration is wirelessly handed to the device and will be connected via WPA2 security, either through a traditional wireless network or an ad-hoc direct network.

Out of the 10,000 wireless devices certified to use WiFi Protected Setup since 2007, a significant amount of them are utilizing NFC technology.

Hackers Can Leave You on PINs and Needles
For this method, a unique PIN is assigned to each device that joins a protected WiFi network, which is required to access the network. These PINs are used to ensure that devices trying to connect to the Internet are allowed to. This keeps hackers and other malicious attempts to access your system at bay.

The difference between PINs and passwords is a pretty significant one - encryption. The PIN is assigned by the wireless router, and when another device attempts to log onto the network, it will prompt a PIN entry. The PIN is encrypted and secure, making it far more secure than any old password could be.

Everything the Light Touches is Your Kingdom
Recent successful testing of WiFi broadcasting through light energy is giving rise to an entirely new kind of wireless Internet access. LiFi can send digital information over a light spectrum at 10 gigabytes per second, which is mind-numbingly fast. That's 250 times faster than the average broadband connection, making it an ideal choice if you like fast Internet speeds (and who doesn't?).

Additionally, this kind of wireless access might be the most secure innovation of all; Unlike WiFi, which leaks through walls and solid objects, LiFi signal is limited to the extent of the light given off by the LiFi bulb, making it much more secure, but less widespread. A hacker would need to infiltrate your home or business and get in range of LiFi bulb in order to access your Internet, so unless you sleep like a rock, they can't get away with accessing your network.

Any business is sure to use multiple WiFi access points during their day-to-day routine, and they probably use a variety of different devices to connect to these points. New problems arise at all times, so make sure that your WiFi security isn't neglected. Call k_Street Consulting, LLC at (202) 640-2737 and we'll use our remote IT services to make sure that your network access points are as secure as can be!