I came across a news article today in which an 18 year old broke into a church to view pornography on the church computer. What’s even worse is that people can view pornography on your computer network even without physically breaking into your home and/or business and you never know it.

To help protect your home and/or business network against strangers from surfing pornography on your Internet connection from a laptop in their car or physically on one of your computers:

1. Make sure your wireless router’s security settings are enabled. Many people purchase a wireless router for their home and/or business and plug it up without changing any of the default settings. By doing this, you are allowing anyone outside your home, within range, to use YOUR Internet connection any way they want, including surfing porn sites.   If they were to access anything illegal, it would come back to you and your network and you would have to prove otherwise. Take the time to go through your wireless router’s manual to set up WPA2 security on it. I personally advise to also set it to not broadcast your wireless network’s name.

2. Install an Internet Filter to block porn sites. In addition to securing your wireless router, add an additional internal layer of protection with an Internet filter, like Bsecure. An Internet filter like Bsecure can provide up to 58 categories that you can allow or block. It also provides graphical reporting of the types of sites that are being visited as well as sending you instant alerts of suspicious activity. This way, if someone were to physically breach your house or business to surf porn, they couldn’t. It will also protect yourself from guests or friends of your children who may be “curious” and try to go to sites they should not visit.