Wireless Security

Pablo72

Pablo72

Pablo72

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13 Oct 2006
Posts
756
I'm a home user, who seldom uses the internet, except maybe for the occassional downloading of a game patch, a bbit of retail therapy and looking on this forum. As such my system is never constantly connected to the net.

I have a wireless router and was just wondering how important is is to use WPA security rather that WEP on the router.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks again
 
WEP isnt great WPA is the way, also use MAC filtering, if you really want disable SSID.

Not to be rude but why would you not encrypt it? if you leave your front door open and then put a sign up on it saying 'Im open' would you expect to have your tele when you got home?

Also your paying for an ISP service which anyone else nearby can use for free! :eek:

so if i carry on i could ramble all day, in answer, yes encrypt it (at the very least)
 
J.B said:
Not to be rude but why would you not encrypt it? if you leave your front door open and then put a sign up on it saying 'Im open' would you expect to have your tele when you got home?

Also your paying for an ISP service which anyone else nearby can use for free! :eek:

so if i carry on i could ramble all day, in answer, yes encrypt it (at the very least)
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But.... He's using WEP at the moment. Not the best of encryption, but your standard neighbours won't be able to hack it surely....

I used WEP for a year, until i upgraded my security to WPA. Not that i got hacked, but just in case and to keep up...

I agree with the "disable SSID broadcast" this will prevent from people actually being able to see your Wireless network.

As for MAC filtering - you have to also limit the number of IP's given out (specify short IP range) but then if one of your machines isn't on, will it be given out to an "unidentified" machine logging onto your network?
 
J.B said:
WEP isnt great WPA is the way, also use MAC filtering, if you really want disable SSID.

Not to be rude but why would you not encrypt it? if you leave your front door open and then put a sign up on it saying 'Im open' would you expect to have your tele when you got home?

Also your paying for an ISP service which anyone else nearby can use for free! :eek:

so if i carry on i could ramble all day, in answer, yes encrypt it (at the very least)
Click to expand...

My question was which one is better WEP or WPA... not whether I should bother using any form of encryption! But thanks anyway... I think!

And at no point in my original message did I even suggest that I use no encryption.
 
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Phnom_Penh said:
Use WPA. Not worth bothering with MAC filtering or turning off SSID broadcasts.
Click to expand...

Yup, mac filters and the lack off SSID just causes you grief. WPA with a 8 strong password is all you need...
 
Pablo72 said:
Sorry to ask, but why exactly is WEP no good? I'm not doubting it, just curious?
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It's pretty easy to crack, although WPA is not that much harder (That article's a year old now, cracking has moved on a lot). Encryption like WPA2/TKIP/AES etc is the way forward ;).
 
Phnom_Penh said:
It's pretty easy to crack, although WPA is not that much harder (That article's a year old now, cracking has moved on a lot). Encryption like WPA2/TKIP/AES etc is the way forward ;).
Click to expand...

But for a home user is this really needed? I don't mean security in general, but rather such a strong security system. Would your average PC user honestly know how to crack a 128 bit WEP?

Or is it really that simple to hack into my 2 gig a month broadband account?
 
i have WPA, MAC filtering and have removed my SSID, if you have the security facilities you may as well use it. from what ive seen it takes about 20-30 minutes to crack WEP by sniffing the packets being sent and recieved.

MW
 
Pablo72 said:
Would your average PC user honestly know how to crack a 128 bit WEP?
Click to expand...
It's not your average pc user you should be worried about ;).
Mr-White said:
i have WPA, MAC filtering and have removed my SSID, if you have the security facilities you may as well use it.
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Not worth using mac filtering or ssid hiding, they can both be got around in about 30 seconds.
Mr-White said:
from what ive seen it takes about 20-30 minutes to crack WEP by sniffing the packets being sent and recieved.
Click to expand...
Energize said:
You can crack wep in under 5 mins using freely and easily avalible software. Thats why you shouldn't use it.
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It's more like 3. You just create artificial traffic, meaning far more dropped packets.
 
3 mins now woah last article i read was longer, even cracking evolves quickly

if they can get your SSID in 30s whats the advantage of broadcasting the SSID ?

how long does WPA take to crack ?

MW
 
Mr-White said:
3 mins now woah last article i read was longer, even cracking evolves quickly

if they can get your SSID in 30s whats the advantage of broadcasting the SSID ?

how long does WPA take to crack ?

MW
Click to expand...
It's also the fact that processors have gotten far more powerful, with Conroe etc.

You don't have to bother typing it in?

11, but it varies with key length.
 
WPA 2 with TKIP is what you should use since it changes the key periodically and uses an 128bit aes based algorithm.
 
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