Why does my wireless say unsecured

An unsecure wireless connection is one you can access without a password. Public networks offered in places like cafes are often open.

Although these provide free wireless Internet access, using public Internet comes with dangers. If your home Internet is open, you should consider securing wireless access to protect your data and avoid legal trouble. The two types of public networks are ones that are left open by businesses and ones that are left open by individuals.

An open network from a business allows customers to use the Internet in the establishment -- such as patrons of a coffee shop using the network to work. An open network in a home comes from a router that hasn't been secured.

Sometimes this is unintentional, if the owner doesn't know that her network is open. However, an unsecure wireless connection isn't always bad. Some experienced users opt to leave their Wi-Fi open for the public to access, with proper security precautions to protect their data and bandwidth. Even if you have a strong password, you need to have a strong encryption protocol to secure your network. The oldest among these is WEP.

Both protocols use an identical mechanism and therefore are exposed to the same vulnerabilities. If you see this warning on your home, office, or other private networks, you need to check the security type your Wi-Fi is currently using.

Most routers will have WPA2 options except the very old ones. This is generally the same page from where you set your Wi-Fi password. This makes it difficult to provide specific steps. Go to Solution.

Get the User Manual. Look for "Changing Wireless Security Settings". Select something with "WPA" in it. Then run around to all your wireless client devices, and reconfigure them to use the new scheme.

Then you'd simply be adding a new wireless network on each client device. On a less obsolete router model, it's normally displayed on almost every page you'd get from its management web site "routerlogin. Look for "firmware" in the User Manual. View solution in original post. Not if your antique does the job. I'd definitely look beyond Netgear, however.

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