Thread: Securing a wireless network? HOW?

MAC Address Filtering (the only "security" I use)
Enable WEP, upgrade to WPA if possible
Disable beaconing if possible (I think only Linksys does this)
Change your SSID to something that does not indicate your equipment or physical location
Change your router username and password to something strong

Originally Posted by wizardPC

MAC Address Filtering (the only "security" I use)
Enable WEP, upgrade to WPA if possible
Disable beaconing if possible (I think only Linksys does this)
Change your SSID to something that does not indicate your equipment or physical location
Change your router username and password to something strong

thanks for the info! anyone else?

MAC Address filtering is the best way. WEP sux, it slows down your network, MAC address filtering is virtually unbreakable... it would take years and a super computer to crack it because of the enormous amount of mac addresses available. Disable broadcasting your SSID and change it.... so basically everything Wizard said.....

I setup these networks all the time... MAC filtering is the best

I myself have purchased the D-Link DI-624, I have mac filtering enable and I haven't noticed any speed issues.

It is crackable though, but totally not wortht he effort unless you have files that are actually worth something

Originally Posted by R3l0ad

MAC address filtering is virtually unbreakable... it would take years and a super computer to crack it because of the enormous amount of mac addresses available

Actually... its really not that hard. I went through a whole seminar on how to crack WEP and MAC filtering.

All you would need is a packet sniffer and patience and a computer. MAC addresses are transfered over clear just like WEP is. So it wouldn't be that hard to MAC spoof your NIC card.

WEP is still crap, get WPA and turn off SSID beacon. Wait for 802.1x.

What matters is how security the AP is. A strong alphanumeric password is HIGHLY recommended.

If you have to use WEP, use 128bit encryption with 4 rotating keys. This would take a cracker... a couple weeks to break and tons of packet sniffing. Also, if you have some top secret info, change your passphrase about once a week to foil sniffers.

Remember WEP stands for Wired Equilvilant Privacy... it might take a cracker 2 weeks to sniff your WEP keys, but it takes 5 minutes to set up a wired line if you leave your front door unlocked.

-Kay

Using a passive wireless sniffer like Kismet, it is trivial to find networks, even if they don't broadcast a beacon. It is equally trivial to sniff traffic to discover known good mac addresses and then spoof them. WEP can be cracked relatively easily, especially if there are a lot of packets flying. In short, the security built into your average, consumer level accesss point is next to worthless against even a mildly skilled cracker. This may change as WPA and 802.1x trickles down to consumer level gear. Also, endpoint VPN is starting to show up in the $200-300 SOHO market. VPN provides an much more robust level of security.

In short, enable the built in security features on WAP, but don't rely upon them if you need true data security.

Just as I were saying...wireles security is just as good as a hard wired connection... if you have important stuff.. keep it safe offline

WEP although not all that safe, its still reasonable safe for a home network. Breaking WEP requires millions of logged packets, so if your wireless is only moderately used it would take a very long time. If its much of a worry, just change your WEP key once a week, but I don't think its neccissary.

WPA is a better choice if all your hardware supports it and probably even easier to setup, but if your running wireless on a linux machine, you may run into some hassles with configuring it.

I think he just wants to keep his neighbors from stealing WiFi from him. MAC address filtering is the only thing that I use because I am not worried about anyone doing anything malicious here. In fact, I am THE wardriver here, so if anything was to happen to my network, it could only be me!