4 Church Wireless Security Tips

When it comes to setting up a network at your church, it is a necessity at this point in time. Now, there are internal networks for your own server to talk with a number of other workstations at your facility, which is a beast in and of its own. But, there is also the need to have Internet access for sending emails, watching YouTube, researching and, of course, for Googling.

All of these capabilities are made available to the everyday user carrying a notebook computer, tablet or smartphone, by way of a wireless router. That wireless router takes the converted signal coming from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and beams it to the nearby vicinity. And voila! Your browser loads a website.

This is amazing. No wires needed.

However, there are some issues that could come based on how secure you have made your wireless network.

Here are four security tips that I would recommend implementing when setting up a wireless network at your church:

Tip #1: Create a network for your administration/staff/media computers where you can wirelessly share files, browse the web, etc. This is a private wireless/cable-connected network that no one except the leadership of the church should have access to.

Tip #2: Make sure this internal network has a good password. And by that I mean, please don’t use something like password or 12345, instead use a slogan of the church that might include @!~*^ symbols. You can use 1Password or LastPass for generating passwords or storing login info to make this whole process easy and secure.

Tip #3: Have a wireless network that solely gives the public access to the Internet. Nothing more. Nothing Less. Make sure no one has file permissions to any shared folder.

Tip #4: Give out the password to the public WiFi on Sunday mornings on a slide, or in the bulletin. Make it memorable, yet have it be at least alpha-numeric.

Now, with these few tips, you should be well on your way to having a secure wireless network at your church.

What other tips for securing your wireless network do you have that were not listed here?