I've always used a WEP key for my wireless security, but a friend I met in Utah used MAC address filtering. Coming home, I didn't think I would need it, but now I do and have written this little tutorial for enabling and configuring MAC filtering.
MAC filtering isn't full proof, but it will give you that additional protection.
What you want to have is WPA2-PSK, or personal, enabled with a long passphrase of numerals and letters, both lower and upper case, and by using the additional filtering, hackers will need to go through two defenses, rather than just one.
I'll eventually have a section for tutorials on their own, but for now, I'll put it here while I get things organised.
So not long ago, I found someone logging into my wireless network to download whatever they were, which explains why the bandwidth would finish so quickly.
I changed my WEP key to a WPA key, because I could change a passphrase from numbers to letters and numbers.
However, the person figured it out, again.
So what I have done now is create a much longer passphrase and use WPA2, which is really version 2 of WPA, and use MAC filtering to restrict all connections even after logging in.
So to enable MAC filtering, you need to log into your router.
Go into your browser and type in the URL of your routher. A typical URL is 192.168.1.1.
The default user and password are both admin, generally.
Now you need to go into your MAC filtering settings and enable it.
Depending on how your routers interface is, you may need to do some digging, but once found, and enabled, you want to deny any user not listed in the filter. All you need to do is add the MAC addresses of those you want to allow and you're set. There's no need to enable or change any settings in the router firewall.
You can find your MAC address by going to Start, then Run, and type 'cmd'. It should open up Command Prompt where you can type in 'ipconfig /all' to see your connection information and status.
If Run > cmd doesn't work, which for me sometimes it'll automatically close straight away, you can find the Command Prompt within the Accessories menu from your Start menu.
You want to look for your Physical Address to check for your MAC address.
One problem I ran into was that trying to get my laptop connected, the physical address listed did not work. So what I did was had my laptop connect to the router as usual, without filtering enabled, so that within the Wireless Statistics, I could see what MAC addresses my laptop was using, me being the only one connected at that time. If you have more, you can temporarily change the passphrase, or if you know their MAC addresses, restrict them temporarily to isolate your own.
The additional WEP key or privileges made no effect on how I connected, so simply using allow is enough, as long as anything not listed is rejected.
And there you have it, a more secure network.
In summary, use WPA2 for your encryption with a long and mixed passphrase, and MAC filtering for the secondary defense.
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