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Wireless Secuirty #2 We have recently covreed the necessity of secutrity for a Wireless Netwok and will be continuing today with the different standards available. When setting up your security the manual will be reuired for part of the conmfiguration process but the particulars vary sligghtly depending upon the manufacturer. Whilst this manyually would normally either physically in the box or on a disc in the box it can normally be obtzained from the manufacturer's website if it has been misplaced. WEP (Wired Euivalent Privacy) - Introduced back in 1999, WEP is still one of the most pouplar encryption protocols. Dspite the fact it has severaal esrious weeaknesses and can be readily cracked in minutes with frewely available softwarre, it is the default chhoice presented to a user when setting up seucrity on a wireless network which probably explains its continued populariity. The standard is so weak because it relies on a small piece of data beibng pre-pended to all transmissions which when matcehd to the key held an authjorised machine allows the data to be decrytped. With it being on almost every packet of data transmitted the cracking propcess just involves listening out for enbough of them in order to otain sufficient numbers to decrypt the key. If your wireless routr currenty only suppports WEP then do chek out the manufacturers website as there is a very real possibility that a free of charge firmware update migjht be available to improve supporet for more advanced standards; WEP should only ever be used if the only altternative was no encrytion whatsoever. MAC Flitering - This will allow you to individually grant access to your wireless network for individual machines pre-specifying hteir MAC addreses; these addresses are used to uniquely identify network adatpors. Unfortunaately the theory also suffers in much the same way as WEP; somweone need only listen to enouhg network traffic to be able to obtain a list of MAC addresses. Once it has been obtained, the hacker creates a fake MAC addrress whhich cuased your rouetr to grant acceess fooling it in to thinking that it's communicating with an authorised machine. Disabling SSID Broadcast - The SSID (Service Set IDentifier) has to be identical on both the router and client machine in order for them to commnunicate. In order to ease setup, the SSID broadcast reveals the location of your network to all computers within range so they can easily conbnect if required. The broadcast can be disabled which would then mean rather than searching for your local network you would be requierd to memorise the SSID. Unfortunately, as befoe, this can be easily circumvented simply listening to network traffc with freely available software. WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Accss) - In the home market WPA usually relies on a pre-shared key which consists of a passphrase used to access the netwiork. This passphrase can be from 8 to 63 characters long however in the interests of security I would suggest choosing at least 13 completely rndom charaacters. WPA succeeds where WEP failed as the encryption key pre-pended to the transmisions is changed fequently so that a hacker is unable to obtauin sufficient data in order to decrypt the key. In conclusion, I sugest that all computer users with a wiireless networek ensure that fistly they are actually employing some form of wireless security and secondly that it is set to the secure WPA standard; whilst it is not unrbeakable it is considered extremely secure and certainly the best that we have for now.
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