In terms of wireless network security, is WEP encryption the most secure choice?
I am the home user, and have multiple machines connect to the wireless router inside the house. I worry about the wireless security and people can hack the machines.
There are choices such as WEP 64 bits, WEP 128 bits, and PSK. I chose WEP 128 bits but not sure if this is the most secure choice.
Any other suggestions to make the wireless network more secury?
Please advise. thanks!!
WEP is flawed. Anyone with the proper tools and time can break it.
WPA is considered very secure if you use a good passphrase. Either TKIP or AES (WPA2).
WEP isn't recommended but it's better than no encryption. It would be best to use WPA or WPA2 encryption instead.
No, it is not WPA is more secure. WEP is breakable with sufficient captured traffic.
Yes, they can. Make your essid hidden, so that the outsider has to try to figure out what your essid is to connect. Then make sure you have some encryption configured. If you are worried, make sure that the key is changed periodically.
I am using linksys wireless router, and it doesn't support WPA, it has WEP. any ideas??
No point in hiding the SSID if it's intentional intruders that are a worry, they'll just run Kismet and immediately find it.
Similarly, WEP is equally pointless for deterring intentional intruders.
WEP will only stop casual intruders. With sufficient data, it can be broken. WPA is more secure, however you may also want to use a VPN.
There is a very serious flaw in WEP which allows it to be cracked fairly easily. If you have a choice between WEP and WPA go with WPA.
Thank you. You would be surprised at how many home users are unconcerned about this sort of thing.
If PSK is shorthand for WPA-PSK (which it probably is) than that is the best choice.
-j
or if you're wanting to up the security, you might want to consider a VPN (with a digital certificate), or a Radius authentication server (with digital certificates)
Enjoy Postmaster
Either upgrade the firmware so it does support WPA, or replace it with a more modern one (WRT54G is nice, and around $60) that does support WPA.
I recently did a scan at a friends home. There were 5 or 6 open WiFi connections available and only a couple using encryption.
See if there's an update available. My SMC didn't originally support WPA, but does now.
I have Linksys Wireless-G USB Kit with SpeedBooster
Does it have WPA support?
WPA is the same as PSK? It has PSK-RADIUS, and RADIUS, which one is better?
Ok, if someone really hacked my WEP key, then they can get in my machine and steal things?
Please advise more...
None, shall we continue to guess *which* Linksys wireless router or are you going to tell us? :)
David.
True.
Silly.
You *can't* hide the ESSID! You can turn off periodic broadcasting of the ESSID, but that does *not* hide it. It is, unencrypted, sent in every packet you transmit. The broadcast merely makes sure that you do in fact transmit a packet at short, regular intervals.
The point of doing that is to allow a short "scan" to detect the presense of a network. The value is that it can be *avoided* if it will interfere with another network. Hence if you turn off ESSID broadcasts the likelyhood that a neighbor will fire up his wifi access point on the same channel as yours, is much greater than if the ESSID broadcast is enabled.
If the neighbor is interested in cracking your network, the lack of an ESSID broadcast is *not* going to hide the existance of the network for longer than it takes you to use it. Which is to say that as soon as you actually do use it for traffic, your ESSID is available to the neighbor.
It has *nothing* to do with security, obscure or otherwise.
All of the Linksys routers support WPA. The earlier /firmware/ doesn't though, and either a Linksys upgrade or third party firmware can be downloaded and applied to add support for WPA.
Jerry Park wrote in news:pJh_e.656$Qb6.412 @bignews6.bellsouth.net:
Yes and not much time either. Say around two minutes max.
Much stronger than WEP. Probably fine for most purposes.
Klazmon.
>
Can you post the model number of your linksys? You did say earlier that among your choices was something called "PSK" (Private Shared Key). That may be a WPA mode.
-j
If you go out to the Linksys web site, you can download a newer version of the firmware for the box. This will add WPA.
Other options: 1. Use a VPN (openvpn, poptop) 2. Use a Radius authentication server. 3. Use a different router. 4. Use this router as a front-end to another firewall, so you'll have WiFi (public, and open, and also have a secure private LAN).
Enjoy Postmaster
There are also three other things to do here, which will provide some additional layers that someone would have to go through:
The key to security is layers. Do not depend upon a single protection mechanism.
HTH,
Marc Schwartz
Yes, make sure you have the latest firmware from Linksys for this router.
Well, PSK is a subset of WPA. I don't have one set up here right now, but I've played with them a lot lately. You ought to have an encryption style, which will be {none,wep,wpa} and upon selecting WPA you'll get another selection of {psk,radius,etc}, and then upon selecting PSK you'll get {tkip,aes?}.
You'll want WPA - PSK - TKIP with a non-dictionary passphrase.
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