How to Password Protect Your AirPort's Wireless Network

  Matt Cone       January 14, 2013      Tutorials AirPort Network

If you own an AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, or Time Capsule, you should consider protecting your wireless network with a password to prevent other individuals from accessing it. Enabling password protection is easy and can provide peace of mind. You probably don’t want others stealing your bandwidth or, in a worst-case scenario, using your network to do something illegal.

Here’s how to password protect your AirPort’s wireless network:

1. Open the AirPort Utility application. (It’s in Applications → Utilities.) The window shown below appears.

   

2. Click the AirPort Extreme base station. The configuration window pops up.

3. Click Edit.

4. Click Wireless. The window shown below appears.

   

5. Select an option from the Wireless Security menu. (For the strongest encryption, select WPA2 Enterprise.)

6. Enter a password for your wireless network in the Wireless Password and Verify Password fields.

7. To save the password so you don’t have to enter it every time you connect to your wireless network, select Remember this password in my keychain.

8. Click Update. The AirPort base station saves your changes and restarts. Your wireless network will be briefly unavailable during this time.

Congratulations! Once your AirPort turns back on, your wireless network will be password protected. From now on, you’ll need to enter the password to connect devices to the wireless network.