Where Can I Find My Network Security Key

CYBER SECURITY | five MIN READ

As a managed It services provider, we strive to utilize our industry cognition to articulate upward any often asked questions for our audience. A network security primal, likewise known every bit your Wi-Fi password, is a phrase that can confuse those outside of technical industries. Understanding jargon like this is the start step in learning how to better secure your network. Read more than to learn what a network security key is, what types exist, where you tin can find information technology, and tips on how to better protect your network.

Not enough fourth dimension? Leap to:

What is a Network Security Key?

What Are the Different Types of Network Security Keys?

Where Tin I Discover My Network Security Key?

How Tin can I Better Protect My Network?

What is a Network Security Key?

In elementary terms, a network security key is another name for your Wi-Fi countersign.

A network security key is a kind of network password/digital signature that one enters as say-so to proceeds access to a wireless network.

Network security keys also establish secure connections betwixt the user requesting access and the network or wireless device. This protects a network and its associated devices from unwanted access.

When you have a weak network security primal, you go out your network open up to access by cyber criminals. If a cyber criminal is able to access your personal information, information technology can exist sold on the nighttime web or can lead to identity theft and other serious consequences.

RELATED: How Hackers Get Your Business' Personal Data

What Are the Dissimilar Types Of Network Security Keys?

The virtually mutual types of network security keys are Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2) .

WEP

A WEP primal is a security passcode for Wi-Fi-enabled devices. WEP keys let devices on a network exchange encrypted messages with each other while blocking those messages from being easily decoded and read by outsiders.

WEP keys are a sequence of characters taken from the numbers 0 through 9 and the messages A through F. For instance, a WEP fundamental could be F45HI00WR3.

The required length of a WEP key could exist ten, 26, or 58 characters long, depending on which WEP version is running. WEP keys can be automatically generated for ease of utilize. When they're not, in that location are websites that generate random difficult-to-estimate WEP keys for you.

WEP keys lost public favor when people began to realize that they are piece of cake to crack, which leaves your network potentially open up to hackers.

WPA/WPA2

WPA and WPA2 are more secure network security keys than WEP. A WPA comes with a password/passphrase that you can obtain from the network'south owner. If you lot accept a Wi-Fi router at domicile, the password that you lot sometimes see printed on the side of it is the WPA key.

Usually with these kind of networks, the owner can reset the WPA key to be whatever password or passphrase they desire.

WPA2 is an fifty-fifty more secure version of WPA because it uses the AES algorithm, a newer, faster, and more than advanced algorithm than what was previously used.

WPA2 is usually the recommended version for businesses, who tend to demand heightened security measures. Go on in mind, however, that to use WPA2, yous might need hardware with a higher processing power.

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Where Can I Find My Network Security Primal?

Has your calculator been asking you to enter your network security key? If so, yous may not know where to find information technology.

Ordinarily, your router has a sticker that lists the Wireless Network Name, as well known as a SSID, and the Wireless Security Primal Password, which is your network security fundamental. Network security keys are a combination of characters, for instance F23Gh6d40I.

If your figurer is already connected to your Wi-Fi and you cannot remember the security key and demand to find it, y'all can also find it past going to the settings on your reckoner. Keep in mind that the following steps will just show you lot your password if your device is already connected to your Wi-Fi network.

Finding the Network Security Central on Windows

If y'all have Windows 10, follow the steps beneath to find the key in your settings.

one. Right-click on the Start menu and and then c lick on "Network Connections".
2. Click on "Network and Sharing Center".

iii. Click on the name of your Wi-Fi network.

4. Click on the "Wireless Properties" button and and so on the Security tab.

5. Select the "Show Characters" checkbox to reveal your network security key.

Finding the Network Security Primal On a Mac

If you lot have a Mac, you can discover your network security key past following a few simple steps.

one. Click the search icon on the pinnacle right side of your screen.

2. Search the phrase "Keychain Access".

three. When the Keychain Access screen pops upward, double click on the proper name of your Wi-Fi network.

iv. Select the "Show Password" checkbox.

5. Enter your Mac password to reveal your network security fundamental.

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How Tin can I Better Protect my Network?

Create a Strong Network Security Cardinal

Weak passwords are ane of the easiest ways to requite a hacker access to your network. If you have a WPA/WPA2 primal that you can select yourself, consider strengthening it and protecting where information technology is written down to ameliorate leverage your cyber security infrastructure.

In general, you should limit how much you write down your passwords, whether they're on a mucilaginous note, an Excel spreadsheet, or in the Notes app on your telephone. This slice of advice extends to writing downwards your Wi-Fi passwords anywhere too.

Writing a password down anywhere leaves it susceptible to being found by hackers. If a hacker were to proceeds access to your network, there is no telling the havoc that they could wreak.

Consider irresolute your network security primal and other passwords every vi months to keep them fresh and secure. Additionally, when creating a password or security fundamental, don't use piece of cake-to-find information such equally birthdays or your children'south names.

When creating a countersign, make sure information technology's long and complex. To make your passwords more complex, try creating a "passphrase" instead. Passphrases involve picking a meaningful phrase that you can remember, and making the first letter of the alphabet of every give-and-take the password.

RELATED: How Can I Create and Secure a Stiff Password?

Keep Firewalls, Routers, and Antivirus Software Upwards-to-Date

Firewalls continue would-exist intruders where they should be– outside your network. Past putting upwardly a virtual "wall" confronting inbound and outbound traffic, firewalls choose whether to allow or block certain traffic through.

Antivirus software is great at scanning incoming files and lawmaking for known viruses and malware. Installing antivirus on your computer should be one of the offset tasks you lot complete when you get a new calculator, as it will aid protect against Net threats.

Firewalls and antivirus software serve as a good ground for building your network security. While installing firewalls and antivirus software are both swell methods for securing your network, many people forget or push off updating them.

While we know this process tin can exist a nuisance,every twenty-four hour period that you wait to update your firewall and antivirus after new versions emerge leaves y'all more vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Software updates are used to patch newly discovered security gaps. When you push off updating your security software, y'all leave yourself open to a cyber criminals exploiting these security gaps to hack into your accounts and steal your personal data.

If y'all are able to, enable auto-updates on your security software and schedule any updates for tardily at nighttime when you lot're not using your computer. This will ensure that even if you lot forget to manually complete an update, it will still happen regardless.

RELATED: How Does Antivirus Work?

Consider Managed IT Services

If y'all are a business, you might feel overwhelmed with managing your cyber security infrastructure. Managed It services can, among many other tasks, assistance yous create a company-wide countersign policy that works for your business.

Additionally, managed It services proactively handles your network'south security by implementing safety measures, and and then employ a squad of IT experts to address whatsoever threats or problems that pop up.

In the outcome that a ransomware attack happens or your network goes down, they tin reduce downtime by rapidly recovering data due to their use of frequent and secure backups.

RELATED: What are Managed Information technology Services?

Nosotros hope that this article answered your questions and taught you a few tips about network protection. For more than cyber security-related content, follow our blog!

Erica Kastner is a lead Marketing Specialist at Standard Office Systems as well equally a University of Georgia graduate. She aims to utilize her passion for problem-solving to help businesses empathise how to amend leverage their network infrastructure.

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