Does it matter if I don't set my wireless network to 'secure'? What are the risks?
465950
This depends on you priority.\nWireless netowrks are prone to Eves Dropping and intrusions. Its better to keep your connection secure as you won;t know when someone is listening to you and what is the purpose.\n\nPrevention is better than cure :)
776060
- Security and threats.  How to make your Wireless Network secure.\n- Reliability and sources of unreliabile and intermitten wireless networks.  How to increase reliability. \n\nGood luck and Happy Computing!
252542
If you've enables security in any form (WEP, WPA, etc) be sure you are using the correct passphrase and/or key to access the wireless router.\n\nIf in doubt, reset the router to factory setting (look in your manual) and try to connect. By default there is no security set in the factory defaults.
573409
Your question is really a two-part question.\n\nThe first part of your question is about the safety of your unsecured wireless network. I'm sorry to say that if you're running an unsecured wireless network you're at risk for hackers and leaches. Hackers may try and hack your computer and install viruses or keyloggers, which are programs that will log all the keystrokes you make. If they are successful at this, they can steal personal data. Best scenario: encrypt your wireless network.\n\nAs for communicating with bill paying websites: check for a little lock - it often appears in the lower status bar or in the upper-right corner of the browser window. The site should also start with https:// not just http://. These sites are secured, which means the information is encrypted prior to being transmitted and cannot be seen by a hacker.\n\nHOWEVER, there IS an exception to the above rule, which gets back to my first point: if the hacker is using a program that forges certificates, he CAN steal the data from you by sniffing it off your network. Thus, it is essential that you encrypt your network.\n\nSo the simple answer is yes, it is unsecure to pay bills or even surf the internet with an unsecured wireless network.
212
Unfortunately, no computer network is truly secure. It's always theoretically possible for eavesdroppers to view or "snoop" the traffic on any network, and it's often possible to add or "inject" unwelcome traffic as well. However, some networks are built and managed much more securely than others. For both wired and wireless networks alike, the real question to answer becomes - is it secure enough?\n\nWireless networks add an extra level of security complexity compared to wired networks. Whereas wired networks send electrical signals or pulses of light through cable, wireless radio signals propogate through the air and are naturally easier to intercept. Signals from most wireless LANs (WLANs) pass through exterior walls and into nearby streets or parking lots.\n\nNetwork engineers and other technology experts have closely scrutinized wireless network security because of the open-air nature of wireless communications. The practice of wardriving, for example, exposed the vulnerabilities of home WLANs and accelerated the pace of security technology advances in home wireless equipment.\n\nOverall, conventional wisdom holds that wireless networks are now "secure enough" to use in the vast majority of homes, and  many businesses. Security features like 128-bit WEP and WPA can scramble or "encrypt" network traffic so that its contents can not easily be deciphered by snoopers. Likewise, wireless routers and access points (APs) incorporate access control features such as MAC address filtering that deny network requests from unwanted clients.\n\nObviously every home or business must determine for themselves the level of risk they are comfortable in taking when implementing a wireless network. The better a wireless network is administered, the more secure it becomes. However, the only truly secure network is the one never built!
984563
have you put a password on your wireless router?\nif you have then it is extremely unlikely that your neighbours are pinching your internet\nif you havent then do so immediately!
576014
turn them off.\nok more seriously, if you are most worried about outside "attacks" then take all the basic precautions you do for a virus on one computer and you probably want to look into a firewall.  alot of routers out there now have good built in "hardware" firewalls as well which work well.\npassword protect things, encryption.\nif you are running wireless you can turn on encryption and password protect it...though personally i'm against this, i have a real issue with broadcasting something out into the air and not sharing it with neighbors.  call me crazy, my phone is corded and my wireless network is called "free and open" and i haven't had any problems at all.  then again there isn't much on my puter that i wouldn't share with someone anyway or that is worth the effort of trying to get off it without my permission.  and nobody has really sucked up so much bandwidth that its caused me any problems.
272080
It could be a problem with your security setting?
531318
sometimes you have to have a password from the wireless provider.
178659
Another thing you can do is turn off "broadcast ssid" in your router's set up screen. You will, however, then need to remember the name of the network in order to connect to it, it wont show up in the  list anymore. You can do this along with the aforementioned encryption if you're feeling paranoid about it.
39124
You internet connection isn't going down but only the ability of your wireless devices to access the internet. Once you enable encryption on your router you then need to configure you laptop/pc's wireless connection to match the ssid and wep key. Once that is done then your connection should work just fine. Wep isn't the best security but it is a start. If you are going to use it then I would use 128bit and disable broadcast ssid. \n\nAs for configuring your laptop/pc it depends on if you are using an application or depending on windows to control the wireless card. An external card could be using an application. If it is an internal built in card then more than likely it is being controlled by windows. You can go to your network connections and verify. If so then there is an option to configure your wep settings.
1082759
Lols!  Good Question. \n\nWell Most of the ones who want to use free wireless will first check the ones with no security Code. For example if you are using a SBC 2wire Router, they do give a security code so if your neighbour wants to use your wireless, then he/she needs to type the code. \n\nAnd then try to change the Badwidth and time to time, check who's online, using your control panel came with the router.
454374
There are various ways of setting up security on routers, you can change the default password for login, disable the broadcast of the SSID, setup various wireless security, Linksys has very good tech support so call them for assistance or check out their knowledge base as well
1128860
If a neighbor is doing it you must have a wireless network.\nAt least enable WEP. (Wired Equivalent Privacy) You can implement as much or as little security as you want to on your wireless network, but at an absolute minimum, even with it's vulnerabilities, you should enable WEP. Whether you implement 64-bit or 128-bit doesn't really matter too much, as it's not the encryption scheme that's determining how long it takes to crack it, but the number of possible Initialization Vectors. WEP is only a low barrier to entry, but it will keep out many of the casual hackers because there are so many other wireless networks that are wide open and easier targets.
582499
it is basicly opposite of what u think, wep key is the password, dont make it obvious use a hard wep key so know one can access ur wi fi for free. the key is what u make up.
614511
you need to put up a wep wireless (Wired Equivalent Privacy) or other privacy keys just change your network settings.
594325
If you're connected to a wireless network with wep and you haven't done any sort of crazy hacking, it's working.  People without the keys, without doing any sort of hacking, won't be able to access the router/access point without your keys.