New Wireless Network

[JGatsby]

I just bought a new laptop and decided to go wireless. Everything is working fine, I just have security question.

When I was setting up the router, I enabled 64 bit encryption and have a 10 digit key to access the connection. Is this all I have to do to ensure my network is secure?

Thanks!

[Wannabe Actuary]

that's all I have set up on mine

[rhoucag]

Use 128-bit if it doesn't affect performance too much.

But you should at least turn off the SSID broadcast and do MAC address filtering.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Originally Posted by rhoucag

Use 128-bit if it doesn't affect performance too much.

But you should at least turn off the SSID broadcast and do MAC address filtering.

I made the SSID something unique, but what benefit does MAC address filtering have?

[Wannabe Actuary]

I just played around and set up the MAC filtering....

Do you use the Firewall setup in your router? How easy is it to set that up? I'm gonna play around with that...any help or guidance is appreciated.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Decided not to play around with that, but I also turned off the SSID broadcast...

I felt inspired by this thread to tweak my settings.

Thanks.

[rhoucag]

MAC address filtering will only allow specific MAC addresses to get on the wifi network. Each wireless pc/notebook card has a unique MAC address. The easiest way is to change the router settings while connected via ethernet cable and then add your MAC address and any others you want.

If use broadcast the SSID, it doesn't matter how unique it is, any wireless device able and close enough will see the name. If you go to public wifi spot, you'll notice this if you view the list of wireless networks your card is reading.

[Renaissance Man]

If you don't care if the link is secured, what I'm about to say doesn't matter. The vast majority of people are not interested in breaking into people's wireless nets.

1) MAC address filtering is easy to break. All a person has to do is observe the wireless traffic, steal the MAC address of a permitted network card, and change their MAC address on their own card.

2) Disabling SSID broadcast keeps casual intruders out. It won't deter a more determined individual.

2) 64-bit WEP is trivially weak for someone who has time to collect traffic off your network. This would be over the course of a couple of months, maybe less. Switching to WPA will solve this for you, as it adaptively changes to encryption key.

[Wannabe Actuary]

Originally Posted by rhoucag

MAC address filtering will only allow specific MAC addresses to get on the wifi network. Each wireless pc/notebook card has a unique MAC address. The easiest way is to change the router settings while connected via ethernet cable and then add your MAC address and any others you want.

If use broadcast the SSID, it doesn't matter how unique it is, any wireless device able and close enough will see the name. If you go to public wifi spot, you'll notice this if you view the list of wireless networks your card is reading.

Cool, thanks. Like I said, I turned on the MAC filtering, and turned off the SSID broadcast. I also changed it to 128 encryption.

[JGatsby]

Originally Posted by Wannabe Actuary

Cool, thanks. Like I said, I turned on the MAC filtering, and turned off the SSID broadcast. I also changed it to 128 encryption.

Diddo. Thanks for the advice rhoucag.