Identity theft has become the most prevalent white-collar crime in America.  Research indicates it affects about seven million people per year, or nearly 800 people every hour of every day. 

Victims can spend as many as 600 hours recovering from this crime, sometimes over several years, and businesses losses total nearly $100,000 from every stolen name.

Of course, anyone who sends private information over the Internet is increasing their risk unless they take steps to protect their network connection.  Wireless security systems are particularly important now, due to the growth of the wireless broadband industry.  Wireless technology has eliminated a lot of messy cables in homes and offices by simply broadcasting a signal to hardware instead of using wires.

The problem with having the signal broadcast though is that it is difficult to contain where that signal may travel. If it can get from upstairs to an office in the basement, then it can also go that same 100 feet to a neighbor's living room or a competitor's PC. Worse, a bad guy searching for insecure wireless connections can get into your systems from a car parked on the street.
That doesn’t mean small business owners or consumers should not use wireless networking.

Everyone just has to be smart about it and take some basic precautions to make it more difficult for hackers to get into privileged information.  Security systems can be customized depending on user need, but there are several things everyone should consider:

• Password-protect anything that is shared with a strong password (not your birthday or the name of your favorite baseball team)
  
• Enable WEP encryption and use a subtle encryption key
  
• Share only what you need to share, think documents instead of folders and folders instead of hard drives
  
• Make sure your router or access point requires a password to gain access to its admin features
  
• Don't use TCP/IP for file and printer sharing

Thinking about security will make your wireless broadband experience safer and will greatly reduce the chances of a long-term, expensive headache