As a junior security analyst for a small business, you are tasked with setting up the company's first wireless network. The company wants to ensure the network is secure from potential attacks. Given

Hiding the network SSID offers minimal security as it can be easily discovered by common network scanning tools and does not prevent access once an attacker knows the SSID.

Enabling WPA2 or WPA3 encryption is the fundamental and most critical security measure for any wireless network. These protocols provide robust authentication and data encryption, protecting wireless traffic from eavesdropping and unauthorized access, which is a top priority for securing a new network.

Implementing a MAC address whitelist is ineffective as a primary security measure because MAC addresses can be easily spoofed by attackers, allowing them to bypass this control.

While regular password changes can be part of a security policy, it is not as high a priority or as fundamentally impactful as strong encryption and can lead to user inconvenience or weaker chosen passwords.