Network Security
It wasn’t too long ago that computers in our home or office were luxury items rather than a necessity. Only the lucky or the wealthy had one in their home and a network was something reserved for large corporations only. But if you fast forward over a few years to today, just about everyone has their own computer, be it at the home or the office. There is one for the parents, sometimes two if they each want one, and one or more for the children to use for their homework, for projects or for games. Home users have gone from having no internet access to having dial-up internet access to broadband connections.
Internet access becoming a necessity
As the Internet and the world wide web have virtually exploded into our culture and are replacing other media forms for people to find their news, weather, sports, in fact a million other things; there is now a new struggle and it is not only for time on the computer at home, but it is for time on the internet system.
A great option is wireless technology
The hardware and software vendors have come out with a whole variety of solutions allowing home users to share one Internet connection among two or more computers through networking. To connect your computers together has traditionally involved having some physical medium running between them. It could have been phone wire, coaxial cable or other cable. But recently hardware has been introduced that even lets home users network computers through the electrical wiring. One of the easiest and least messy ways to network computers throughout your home is to use wireless technology.
Wireless technology is a fairly simple setup. The internet connection comes in from your provider and is connected to a wireless access point or router which broadcasts the signal. You connect the wireless antenna network cards to your computers to receive the signal and talk back to the wireless access point. You are then set up and running. The problem with having the signal broadcast though is that it is difficult to contain where the signal may travel.
Beware of hackers
If the signal is able to get from an upstairs room down to an office or so in the basement, it means it can also go that same distance to your neighbours living room. Even a hacker who is searching for insecure wireless connections can get into your systems from a car parked on the street. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use wireless networking. You just have to be careful and smart about it and take some basic precautions to make it more difficult for curiosity seekers to get hold of your personal information.
As with Windows file sharing, security access options can be set on the FTP server requiring clients to supply a valid login name and password.
Network security should be a concern
Computer network security should be a concern for all. For computers, protection comes in a different forms; it could be a firewall which might need to be implemented to filter the information coming through the internet connection into the private system in the home or business. The firewall will protect the network from offensive websites and potential hackers. The reason for your use of computer networking will determine how much security you should be installing. The highest levels of security will block out everything coming into the desktop, even email. The lowest levels of computer network security will protect your computer from email spam and undetected viruses.
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