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The easiest way to secure your wireless network is the use of WPA and WEP encryption. These forms of encryption scramble the data sent over the wireless signal and can only be de-scrambled with the correct security key. Without knowing this security key makes it difficult to use the data being sent wirelessly.

WPA- this form of security uses a PSK or pre-shared key to secure the network. This PSK is between 8 and 63 characters using the ASCII format. (A-Z and 0-9).

WEP- This form of security uses a WEP key. The security key only uses hexadecimal characters (A-F and 0-9). The amount of characters used depends on the bit size: 64-bit = 10 characters, 128-bit = 26 characters, and 256-bit = 58 characters.

Qwest recommends WPA encryption because of how difficult it is to crack. However, you may find that the device you are connecting wirelessly does not support WPA but instead supports WEP. If this is the case, it is best to use WEP instead of no encryption at all.

SSID broadcast – In the past, turning off SSID broadcast would make it harder for a hacker to detect that you even had a wireless network. Today, however, even with SSID broadcasting off it is still possible to see a wireless access point and is not considered a safe practice when used alone.