Is my network secure?

What devices are using those MAC addresses? Your own PCs or something else?

You can see your own device MAC addresses, on windows, using 'ipconfig /all' from the cmd line. Look for the line labelled 'Physical Address'. If you're on a linux or Macintosh you could use 'ifconfig' and look for 'HWaddr'. For other stuff like printers and such you may have to look on their labels to find the address (presuming they're networkable, of course!)

If it's not a MAC address of one of your own devices than it's something else trying to get connected. There's not much you can do to "stop" them from trying. But if you're got your WPA setup then they just won't make the connection.

But if you're really concerned about being 'secure' then using wireless isn't the way to get it. Sure, it can be made pretty resistant to casual attempts, and WPA is currently as good as it's going to get for fending off unwanted connections. But it wouldn't prevent someone from staging denial of service or other attacks bent on slowing the network down so much as to become useless. For that you ought to be using an actual wired connection.

So it all depends on just how 'secure' your situation requires.

Thanks for that - none of the MAC address are the laptop of the wireless IP camera, so assume they must be somebody trying to hack into the network. On the basis that the log says: 'Unallowed access from....', does that mean the attempt to connect has failed? The wording isn't particularly clear - it could mean that they have had access but it was unallowed. Get my drift?

Gus,

It could be that what you saw was no more than a neighbor trying to connect and was refused because the security or encryption was not right as it should be. The fact of the connection was attempted does not neccessarily mean that there was a problem. the device trying to connect may simply have been using a broadcast SSID, or if you have not changed your SSID from the default of your router or access point.

I do have a question do you have Broadcastt SSID turned off. This will prevent a device from trying to connect if it is using a broadcast SSID such as ANY or a blank SSID. It does not stop beacons with your SSID from being sent out over the air as many people think.

Yes - I've got my broadcast SSID off, which I remembered I did some time ago, when I tried to reconnect the laptop after a problem with the network and then couldn't quite work out why the laptop couldn't see the network on a wireless scan. When I connected the laptop on a cable and went into the router settings, I enabled broadcast SSID so I could connect wirelessly, and then disabled it again once connected.

Thanks for all your help, by the way.

Eh, using no SSID broadcast is almost useless. Anything that listens passively to the airwaves will quickly be able to determine it. That and if anyone else is setting up their own network they may not see your equipment already on the channel. So then you'll have the potential for someone else to innocently setup their equipment on the same channel and ruin bandwidth for the both of you. And this helps you, how?

It's better to leave the SSID being broadcast and just go with WPA.

-Bill Kearney

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:34:38 -0400, "Bill Kearney" wrote in :

Agreed. But make sure the SSID is unique to you (e.g., GusUltonNet) -- lots of connection attempts are nothing more than using a common default SSID (e.g., "linksys").

I've changed my SSID to something unique (I think, because I can't see any other wireless networks in my local area transmitting).

Just be sure to check the nearby airwaves now and then. At some point someone else may be likely to setup another network. Since clients don't generally care which channel they'll use it's often better to switch your channel to something else to avoid the interference. It's impossible to completely avoid interference or overlap if there's a lot of access points. But when there's only a few, especially if they're all crowded on a default channel, it's possible to move to a different channel and possibly avoid the performance hits.

-Bill Kearney