11 Best Practices for Securing Your Organization’s Wi-Fi Network

How much does your business rely on its Wi-Fi connectivity? If it’s like most, the answer is almost certainly quite a bit. There is no denying that Wi-Fi is a staple in modern workplace processes, but at the same time, it can also prove to be a major security liability if the proper steps are not taken. Therefore, it’s beneficial that you take these steps.

What follows are the steps that we recommend you take—and that we can help you enact, if you need a hand.

Your Business Isn’t Secure if Your Wi-Fi Isn’t Secure

There are a lot of steps here, but we’ve shared them because they are all very important to help protect your business and its wireless connections. We recommend that you implement all of the following steps to better protect your business and the data it contains.

Implement MFA

Multi-factor authentication is an excellent means of reinforcing the security of any resource that requires a login—including your Wi-Fi. Your router and access points need to be locked down with multi-factor authentication to ensure that someone can’t get in and adjust critical network settings. 

By requiring someone attempting access to provide an additional proof of identity, whether that’s a generated code on an authorized device, the manipulation of a physical token, or even a biometric scan, you make it far more difficult for someone without authorization to gain access to controls that could potentially give them access to other, more sensitive information. 

Change SSID and Turn Off Broadcasting

Your SSID—your Service Set Identifier—is your Wi-Fi network’s name, and as such it plays an important role in your cybersecurity in a few different ways.

First off, every router will come with a default name that appears when a user tries to connect. The default name is usually the name of the router you have or the manufacturer’s name, with a series of numbers next to it. This is not information that you want an attacker to have, as they can use it to find the default password or even potential ways of cracking it, so it is important that this default name is changed. That being said, we recommend you don’t necessarily change it to something that identifies your business, either, with exception to the limited guest access you provide (more on that shortly).

We also recommend that you disable SSID broadcast for your internal network, which can help amp up your security further. Rather than your connection displaying itself to any device with an active Wi-Fi connection within range, a user will have to manually type both the SSID and the password in order to connect… an SSID that you will need to provide. Granted, this can be overcome by someone using a Wi-Fi sniffer, but it will help isolate your network that much more.

Block Unauthorized Traffic with a Firewall

While a firewall is commonly considered a basic network security precaution, there’s a good reason for that: it’s effective. By blocking traffic based on whether or not it has permission to cross the network, the firewall helps prevent an assortment of threats—like malware, for instance—from accessing your business at all.

We’ll help you set up your router so that your entire network is protected by a reliable and robust firewall so everyone benefits.

Enable WPA3

WPA3—the third version of the Wi-Fi Protected Access security certification—does a better job of protecting a network than its predecessor, WPA2. The WPA certification is actually a prerequisite for any certified Wi-Fi devices to support, but that doesn’t mean it’s enabled by default. Turn to Datalyst for more assistance with your wireless security and make sure this critical setting is enabled.

Change Passwords to Strong Options

I know, I know… you were hoping to get through just one security discussion without the mention of passwords, weren’t you?

Just as with any account or device that requires authentication, your business’ router needs to have the default access credentials revised to a far more secure option than the factory default. We’ve discussed how to create better and more secure passwords in the past, but we’re always happy to review some standard practices with you:

• All passwords should be totally unique, never repeated across accounts.
• Alphanumeric characters and symbols should be used in tandem to add complexity.
• A passphrase, made up of unrelated words, is another option to help add complexity.
• All passwords should only ever be stored in a standalone password manager that your IT resource has greenlit.

We aren’t just talking about the password to connect to your company’s Wi-Fi network. We’re also talking about the password to log in and manage your Wi-Fi router and access point, and all of your other networking equipment. Most routers come with a factory-default username and password to log in the first time. These credentials are public knowledge and often found online in documentation, on forums, and elsewhere. It’s usually as simple as username: admin and password: admin.

Anyone who gets into your networking equipment can cause a lot of chaos and steal a lot of information, so protecting these devices is crucial.

Turn Off Remote Administration

Remote administration is (technically speaking) a feature that enables a user with the right credentials to access and manage the router’s settings, adjusting the network as they wish to. If this sounds convenient, the cybercriminals agree with you. Disabling this capability will ultimately help keep your wireless network more secure.

Enable MAC Filtering

A MAC (Media Access Control) address is a unique identifier for each and every device that would connect to a network. In essence, it works as a name tag that tells the router that a specific device is requesting access. MAC filtering helps to make your Wi-Fi more exclusive, only enabling devices with pre-approved MAC addresses to connect to a network.

Turn Off UPnP

The Universal Plug and Play protocol is another convenience-focused feature that ultimately proves to be too much of a risk to leave enabled except in very specific cases. In short, UPnP enables devices to automatically discover and connect to one another. The problem is, this includes unauthorized devices. You’ll want to make sure that your router is set up to disable UPnP on a network-wide scale.

Separate Your Employee Access and Guest Access

We’ve finally returned to the question of giving guests to your business access to your Wi-Fi, which offers a legitimately useful and appreciated convenience to them, but could easily put your network at risk if not done properly. Fortunately, most modern networking hardware allows multiple isolated networks to coexist. This allows you to give your employees the access they need, while also providing your guests and customers with the connectivity they’ll want, without putting your internal processes at risk.

For companies that have a lot of foot traffic, you can get away with having a simpler Wi-Fi password for guest access, since the guest network doesn’t access anything on your internal network—it’s just a way for your visitors to go online.

Encryption via a Virtual Private Network

As a wireless signal (compared to a direct cable connection), Wi-Fi can be easy to intercept, which means that there needs to be additional protections there to keep the data it is transmitting private. Encryption is an excellent means of doing this, as it effectively scrambles data to be indecipherable to anyone who does not have the means to decrypt it, so even if someone manages to obtain this data, it does them no good. This kind of end-to-end encryption can be accomplished through the use of a virtual private network, commonly known as a VPN.

Use Mobile Device Management

Mobile device management is an excellent tool for businesses, especially those incorporating a Bring Your Own Device Policy, as it allows for this cost-saving productivity booster to be implemented more securely than otherwise. Amongst other benefits, any device involved in this policy is protected by the protocols your company has in place, ultimately protecting your network more effectively as these devices are used to access it.

Securing Your Wi-Fi is a Big Job… Trust Datalyst to Take Care of It for You

Our team of experienced IT professionals has had ample opportunity to practice implementing and managing all of the above safeguards, to the point that they’ve mastered them. Let us put this mastery to work in terms of your business’ wireless security and the rest of your business technology needs. Find out more about all we can do by checking out some of our other blogs, and be sure to give us a call at (774) 213-9701 so we can chat about your business’ specific needs.