Other wireless security guidelines
To keep the wireless network secure, follow these guidelines:
•
Use a wireless password with at least 20 random characters. You can use up to 64
characters in a WPA wireless password.
•
Avoid any common words or phrases, easy sequences of characters (such as all 1s), and
personally-identifiable information for wireless passwords. Always use random strings
composed of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and if allowed, special characters
such as punctuation.
•
Change the default wireless 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.
•
Turn off administrative access over wireless if possible. If you do this, you need to connect to
the router with a wired 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.