WPA2 upgrade via firmware?

PaulProteus

PaulProteus

PaulProteus

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Joined
24 Dec 2004
Posts
458
As the title, would it be possible to upgrade an existing WPA modem/router to the new WPA2 standard simply via a firmware upgrade?

I am new to wireless and apologise if the question sounds stupid.

Any explanations will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Jordan
 
its possible, depends what make the router is. You can check to see if there is a firmware upgrade for your model of router. Thing is I have personally never seen this happen as people just buy the router that supports wpa2 in the first place.
 
My Speedtouch 585i v6 has WPA2, but as far as I know, none of my wireless adaptors support it? They're all branded and less than a year old, but I can't see any mention of WPA2 in they're specifications.

Would me enabling WPA2 on my router still allow all my client machines to connect to them, or should I just leave things alone :D

I can't try anything out till tonight anyway, when everyone goes to bed :(

Cheers,

SW.
 
tolien said:
If your adapter doesn't do WPA2 you won't be gaining anything.
Click to expand...
But wouldn't it make the routers security tighter - from a wireless hacker’s perspective :)

SW.
 
My adapter is Netgear USB and the router is Netgear DG834PN (they come in the same box). My concern was more about the router giving opportunities for someone to hack the security rather than thinking of the adapter, which is obviously important. Belkin had the WPA2 in the first place but they do not do firmware upgrades and quite a few people here complained from poor performance (I have read similar threads for Netgear as well).

I have asked Netgear guys whether this would be possible and should I get any reply from them I will post it here.

Thanks to all for your responses!

Cheers,
Jordan
 
I have just received an answer from Netgear that implies that such an upgrade is possible in theory. It seems to me (correct me if I have got this one wrong) that they are currently working on this.

10/23/2006 9:34:00 AM


Dear Jordon,

Thank you for choosing NETGEAR, my name is Naveen and I will be your support engineer.

We will be working to assist you in resolving the issue you described. Because we are doing this online it may require a few mail exchanges before we can resolve the issue. We will do our best to help resolve your case at the least possible time.

I understand that you want to know whether WPA2 security is available in the new firmware.

The WPA2 security is not available as of now the in new firmware version. Our engineers are working on it and we cannot promise any time frame for the launch of the new firmware with WPA2 security.

Again, thanks for choosing NETGEAR and we appreciate your continued patience. We will get back with you shortly.

***PLEASE BE AWARE THAT YOUR CASE WILL AUTO-CLOSE AFTER 10 DAYS OF INACTIVITY. ***

Regards,

NETGEAR Support

I asked them for an explicit answer that I might not get in the end and which, I will post here in case I do.

Cheers,
Jordan
 
sam.wheale said:
But wouldn't it make the routers security tighter - from a wireless hacker’s perspective :)

SW.
Click to expand...

Nah don't really think so, I believe 'hackers' can only retrieve the security key from the packets sent in the air, so if the connection is secured in WPA then a WPA2 enabled router would make no difference... I think.
 
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