Dsl Router
Why Use A Nat Router?
Every computer connected to the Internet is exposed to dangers. For myself and many others the benefits of using the Internet far exceed the possible dangers. We can minimize the dangers if we follow some basic security principles both for our home and office computers.
Let's start with how we connect to the Internet using a wired connection. Many home users and small businesses connect to the Internet through a Cable/Dsl Modem. This type of connection is an always on connection. As long as our computers are powered on we are connected to the Internet and exposed to dangers. We increase the danger if we connect our PC directly to the Cable/DSL modem. Computers connected in this way will receive a DHCP public IP address from their Internet Service Provider. What this means is that our PC is both visible and accessible directly from the Internet. This exposes us to Internet scanning, worms, and hackers. If we don't have a software firewall installed then our PC can be easily compromised and our data stolen.
Even though a software firewall can lessen the dangers we are exposed to when we connect in this way, I don't recommend this method. A better solution would be to use a Cable/DSL NAT router. The NAT router would connect directly to the Cable/DSL modem and then our computer or computers would connect to the NAT router. Why is this safer?
One of the key benefits of NAT (Network Address Translation) routers is that the router hides the internal IP address of your computer or computers. The Internet sees you as a single machine with a single IP address. This effectively masks the fact that one or many computers on the LAN side of the router may be sharing that one IP address. This not only provides security benefits but also financial ones. NAT enables you to have more than one computer on your home or office network while you only have to pay for one public IP address from your ISP.
How does NAT work? When you turn on your computer you will receive an RFC1918 private IP address from your router. Usually with most Cable/DSL routers this will be on an 192.168.x.x subnet. This internal private IP will have to be changed or NATTED to a public address in order for you to be able to access the Internet. Since all computers on the LAN side of the router will share the same single IP address, the router keeps track of these outbound connections through PAT (Port Address Translation). Here is what happens. When you make an outbound call to Google, the NAT router receives this request and changes your private IP of (192.168.1.20 for example) to a public IP address say (12.46.115.225) and a port number of 2500 making it (12.46.115.225:2500). A second computer on the same LAN with an IP of (192.168.1.21) also makes an outbound request at the same time. This computer will be assigned the same public IP but a different port number say 2501 making it (12.46.115.225:2501). The NAT router keeps track of these connections in a table. It uses this table to match return connections to the correct computer on the private LAN side of the router.
This is the really good part and why the router provides added security. All traffic arriving at the NAT router that does not exactly match the traffic in the router's table is discarded as unwanted traffic. This basically stops all unwanted inbound traffic originating from Internet scanning, worms, and hackers, protecting our computers on the private LAN side of the router from unwanted traffic from the Internet. So if you don't already have a NAT router why not get one. The added security benefits are certainly worth the added expense.
Of course for a NAT router to provide its full benefits it has to be configured correctly. I will discuss this as well as the following subjects in future articles:
how to secure wireless networks, how to make a server available to Internet users through port forwarding safely, what is a DMZ and what are its benefits,
and how can adding a second NAT router provide even greater security. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.
About the Author
Dave Carvalho
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Secure Your Router With Computer Support
A wrong conception is prevalent among the users that the wired routers like cable, FIOS or DSL router is safer than the wireless routers, which is basically rootless. If two people are on the same network they can find each other's router. If the computer is not secured, the unauthorized person can sneak into your computer or your local area network. So securing your router is important and following some computer support tips you can shield your router.
For securing your router you will have to find out the address of your router. You need to open a command prompt and then need to enter the command ipconfig. On the ‘Default Gateway' line, you will find the router address. So, in the address box you will need to place the address and a prompt will come up to ask for the router's router's login and password.
Now for securing your router you need to follow some computer support steps. First you need to change the default administrator username and password. You can change the username and password with some names of numbers that are not very easy to guess.
Turn off if you are not using any wireless devices. If your router is capable of wireless connectivity, you should not turn the wireless option on if you are not using any laptop, iPod or mobile devices that need not require wireless connection. Tech support experts suggest you to turn the option off so that you can save your home network against any clever malicious attack.
Computer support experts suggest you to change the default SSID name. By changing the default SSID name you can make it difficult for the hackers to attack on your home network. You should also turn off the option of broadcasting your SSID name. You can save your SSID number somewhere offline and can turn the broadcasting off to make it secure.
Tech support experts suggest you to use WPA encryption rather than WEP encryption standard. Cracking WEP encryption is very easy these days and you can be hacked anytime if you are using this standard.
It is always advisable to reduce the wireless power of your wireless router. Reducing the power reduces the hacking chances also. If your router has the option to turn down the power of it's radio signal, it is better that you do so. In this way you can secure your router from hackers or spyware, adware or viruses.
You need to reduce the use of DHCP. Most of the routers by default use this technology of assigning an IP address to any device that request for it . Setting a static IP address may hassle you very little but that can make your computing safe when you are working with router. You can try another thing. You can reduce the number of IP addresses that can be assigned by DHCP. Changing the settings can be tricky and a bit to do but if you can do this, it can help you a lot.
It is better to turnoff your ping response. Many times ping protocols are used by the hackers to find out the routers. It's more like dialing random numbers to see if anyone answers. It is advised that you should not response to these pings.
About the Author
James Madison, a technical geek, loves to write on topics like computer help, computer support, tech support and computer services. He lives in New Jersey with this family.