Mac filtering good or bad?

paul8811 · 13 Jun 2006 at 15:13

I remeber reading about why you should not use MAC filtering on a wireless connection, what are the main reasons behind this?

csmager · 13 Jun 2006 at 15:36

1. No Encryption. MAC Address spoofing is not hard.
2. WEP/WPA Encryption. If the hacker breaks the encyption, MAC spoofing is not hard. If they can break encryption, they'll almost certainly be able to.

So it can be used to add a bit of extra security, but it's fairly useless.

Wyvern971 · 13 Jun 2006 at 15:40

csmager said:
1. No Encryption. MAC Address spoofing is not hard.
2. WEP/WPA Encryption. If the hacker breaks the encyption, MAC spoofing is not hard. If they can break encryption, they'll almost certainly be able to.

So it can be used to add a bit of extra security, but it's fairly useless.

As above, but also if you intend to let friends use your connection it's more hassle to you as you'll need to enter their mac addy in your table

NickR · 14 Jun 2006 at 10:09

...but it will stop other nearby users from accidentally connecting to your AP and leeching your bandwidth. I recently looked at a friends home network that was 'running slow' and found 7 associated wireless clients when they only had one themselves :eek:

MAC filtering stopped the problem reoccurring .....

OllyM · 14 Jun 2006 at 10:21

NickR said:
...but it will stop other nearby users from accidentally connecting to your AP and leeching your bandwidth. I recently looked at a friends home network that was 'running slow' and found 7 associated wireless clients when they only had one themselves

Not if you use encryption...

MAC address filtering is a waste of time, really - don't bother with it.