Security???

[Iceman]

Hi all after numerous calls to Orange about my poor internet/wireless connection. They have managed to help (i think) Basically they have gone through the wireless settings and told me to change the channel from auto to 07.
Now the only thing that concerns me is that the wireless encryption was set to Mixed WPA-PSK+WPA2-PSK
But i have been told to change it to WEP.
Now is this ok to do or would it have been better on the Mixed WPA-PSK+WPA2-PSK
I have been experiencing disconnects from the router tonight in fact 2 in less than an hour and its becoming rather annoying.
So just want a bit of info regarding this.

Thanks.

 

[Dist]

Do NOT use WEP. WEP can be broken in seconds and has greater overheads than WPA and WPA2 (except when using TKIP on WPA as that has by far the greatest overhead)

If all of your devices support WPA2 then use just WPA2-AES. If you have some devices that do not support WPA2 then use WPA-AES (do not use TKIP as it has a much worse overhead than using AES).

 

[Iceman]

Well the only devices that use the internet are my laptop, Iphone and PS3. There is a netbook in the house that will be ok and the kids old pc which may not be ok.
Was this guy right to advise me to change to wep??

 

[Iceman]

WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)
WPA2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key)
Mixed WPA-PSK+WPA2-PSK
WPA-802.1x

Also these are the options i have on security.

 

[Dist]

Changing to WEP from what you were using would be a BIG step down in terms of security, and I don't see it offering any sort of performance or stability increase.

Changing channel can help though, as Wi-Fi channels overlap each other so other Wi-Fi networks in the area, even if they are on a different channel, can cause interference. The main channels to try out are 1, 6 and 11, and these channels don't overlap with each other and usually one of them should work fairly well unless you are in a crowded Wi-Fi area.

WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)
WPA2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key)
Mixed WPA-PSK+WPA2-PSK
WPA-802.1x

Also these are the options i have on security.

WPA2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key) is the most secure, the mixed mode should use WPA2 when possible but fall back to WPA if a device on the network only support that. 802.1x isn't something you really need to think about, and WEP is the worst form of security (slightly better then having none at all).

 

[Iceman]

Thanks for the advice, i shall give this a go. There seems to be a lot of networks around me, all using 1,6 or 11 channels. Would i be ok keeping it on 7 for now?

 

[John24]

You can use whatever channel you want, as said though try and stick to 1,6 or 11. Just try them and see how it is, it won't hurt.

Just the other day I set my wireless security to wep used backtrack to try and crack it, just to see if I could. Took 2 mins from booting the iso to seeing the key on the screen and would take even less time now I know how to do it.

He was wrong to tell you to use WEP.

 

[Dist]

You can keep it on 7 but if there is a lot of people using 6 then that can cause you problems. So if you continue to get drop outs pick a different channel, something as far away from other in-use channels as possible.

If you are unsure if the disconnects that you mentioned are a Wi-Fi problem or an internet problem you could always try and wire up a device to the router, that way if you still get disconnects then it may not be a Wi-Fi issue at all, where as if it works fine then you can be sure that Wi-Fi is the problem.

 

[Iceman]

Yeah it was set to auto, but using some software i could see it was using 11 and 7 together. This was also being used by various other routers and i was having a few problems with the wireless kicking off all wireless devices hence why Orange told me to change to channel 7 and use wep.
Ive gone off wep but im going to stay on the channel 7 and see how well this is.
Thanks for the info guys.

 

[Iceman]