Every time you log on to your home Wi-Fi access point, you can be transmitting your login name, passwords and other sensitive data over open airwaves, and often a credit card number as well. And given that home networks offer the opportunity for bad guys to capture mountains of such data, it's right to be worried.

And while individual home networks may not be quite as attractive to wireless hackers, do you really want your neighbour stealing your bandwidth, or passersby snooping around your hard disk? Just over a year ago, surveys revealed that most public and private Wi-Fi networks used no encryption at all, meaning that anyone with a laptop and Wi-Fi card could intercept and read data packets being sent or received by legitimate users. This could happen even without actually connecting to the wireless router. All that is needed is the ability to "sniff" the airwaves, a rudimentary function offered by dozens of easily downloadable utilities. Even if you aren't worried about your home network, and don't keep any valuable data on your hard drive, you should still be concerned about bandwidth hijackers.

All Wi-Fi equipment supports some form of "encryption." Encryption technology scrambles messages sent over wireless networks so that they cannot be easily read by humans. Several encryption technologies exist for Wi-Fi today. Naturally you will want to pick the strongest form of encryption that works with your wireless network. To function, though, all Wi-Fi devices on your LAN must share the identical encryption settings.

Here at Local IT Care we offer a wireless security check for just £29.99, this comprises of a consultation period, Wi-Fi site survey & a 10 point check of your wireless network set-up.
Please note at no point will we ever ask you for your password for your Wi-Fi network. You must treat this information as you would your PIN number.