wireless security is an essential aspect of any wireless network. It is of great concern because wireless networks are highly prone to accidental security threats. A wireless signal can easily be detected by someone who is near to the wireless network and is equipped with the right receiver. Whether the wireless network is meant for home use or office use, security of this type of network is always going to be a major concern.

Wireless networks are required to be secured completely. Sometimes security lapses occur accidentally. Somebody working on his/her laptop at a place within the range of our wireless network might receive the signals on his laptop accidentally or it can be done intentionally by the use of a receiver.

Most organizations do not realize that how unsecured these wireless connections are for their organization if there is not wireless security in place. If the wireless connection is left open and unsecured, the important information which was meant for private use only can easily be accessed. This can thus become a considerable loss both to the individual and the company. Hence, an organization must realize the need for installing security measures for the wireless network and its different connections.

Some common ways employed for network security includes changing of the service Set Identifier or SSID from default to some other value setting. SSID contains a default code which is required to be changed to some other code as the default code can be easily hacked. But this way of providing security is also not that productive. The hackers can also crack these codes through some tools for hacking.

There are some other wireless network security features available on specific operating systems like Windows XP that secure the wireless networks. These are WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK technologies. A wireless adapter is required to support these technologies on a system. Then there are Media access Control (MAC) authentication tools to monitor access to these networks. MAC is a physical address of the network adapter. These mac addresses can be easily configured for different network adapters. Thus, this ways the network will be accessible to only those machines whose network adapter cards are configured by these addresses. This procedure puts a restriction over network access and helps to provide security to these wireless networks.

Every network has been allotted with an administrative password by default. One way to secure these networks is to change the default settings of the password. The administrator's account name can also be changed to provide security to these networks.

Thus, we can say that wireless security is of a major concern for any organization and must be tackled carefully so that there are no security threats to the organization.

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