A MAC address is akin to a serial number — every networking component has a unique MAC address, or “ID”. One of the best ways to secure your wireless router is to enable MAC Address Filtering. MAC address filtering allows you to restrict access to your wireless network to all computers unless they have their MAC address known to the router. It’s kind of like a guest list at a party….you tell you router “only these MAC addresses will be admitted — and keep everyone else out.”
This type of filtering is an added level of security, as even if someone does have your network password, they still need to have a machine with a MAC address that’s “on the guest list”. Note that you can also restrict MAC Addresses as well, so if you know a MAC address that you don’t want on your network, you can specifically exclude it.
Before we can enable MAC Address Filtering, we have to know how to find a MAC address. This post goes over how to find your MAC address in Windows.
Now let’s head to the router to enable Mac Address Filtering.
1. Login to your router as usual. If you forgot how, look at this post — it’s about how to change your SSID but it goes over how to login to your linksys router.
2. Head to the Wireless settings and select “Wireless MAC Filter”
3. In the menu that appears…
Click “Enable”. And then select either the “Prevent” or the “Permit” option. Personally I use the “Permit” option as that’s just like having a restricted guest list.
Then click on the “Edit MAC Filter List”. Go ahead and type the MAC address for each machine you want to allow on your network to the list. Press “Save Settings” at the bottom when you are done (I’ve blued out my MAC addresses in this image).
That’s it. Any questions?