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Wireless Security - What's It All About?
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I didn't know how sensitive the issue of wireless security was until the local news began running stories about how easy it was to get into your network. You could drive up about anywhere and be able to get into a active network because they had a unsecured wireless network and security was not on their mind.
I even read in the papers where one person was able to stay connected to the Internet while driving all the way across town. He did it by using the default name and the lack of passwords to get into networks as he drove.
To me, that was enough information to keep me from using a wireless network. I wanted one, because of the convenience, but I surely didn't want strangers wandering around my network doing who-knows-what.That's when I decided to find out how do I secure 802.11g networks and what other people were using to keep unwanted guest out of their systems.
I am now able to tell you about how to keep your network to yourself, but allow easy access to those you want to give it. What I learned was used to set up wireless network XP security but these things works with all operating systems.
There are essentially two major types of wireless security you can enable for your network:
WEP wireless security (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is the first method that was used for networks. What it did was allow you to encrypt the data that was being sent and received on your network so others would not be able to see what you were doing.
The router or access point and the wireless cards that connected to it all had to be using the same encryption key to be able to talk to each other.
There were two different strengths of encryption that were developed, 64-bit and 128-bit. On both of these, the first 24 bits was a randomly generated string and the remaining bits were generated by the system administrator either by making up the code bits or letting the computer generate one based on a passphrase.
These remaining bits were then given to each computer so that all computers on the wireless network would be able to talk to the router.
WEP had a fatal flaw in it that was easily broken allowing a hacker to break into your network just as if you had no wireless security at all.
Since the remaining bits of the encryption had to be used by all of the computers using the wireless network, all that was needed was for about 25gb of data to be collected and run through a program to decifer the code. The hacker would then have the information to set their security to match and enter your network.
That was the reason that the 128-bit code was introduced since it caused these types of programs to take longer to crack. With computers at today's speed, it now only takes a few hours.
WPA wireless security (Wi-Fi Protected Access) was the answer to the problems with WEP wireless security. The biggest change was the network would constantly change the encryption code but allow the users to keep using the same passcode. That way, but the time a hacker decifered the code, your network would have changed it long ago.
But WPA is not completely safe. Built into the specification is the ability to detect if the network is trying to be broken into. It does this by checking whether there are any unauthorized packets trying to get into the network. If it detects two packets within 60 seconds of each other, the router will shut down and reboot itself.
Hackers are using this feature to cause Denial-Of-Service attacks on networks. They will send two packets to the network every minute to keep the router from running, thus preventing the real users from accessing the wireless network. Unless you have really made someone mad at you that has some techincal background, you shouldn't have to worry about this.
Now that you have an idea about the different types of wireless security you can use for you network, let's see the steps you should take to secure your network.
Use WPA security if it is available for your network. If not, use WEP, at least use some type of security.
Change your default password to your access point. You don't want a hacker to change it for you.
Change the default SSID name. You should change it to a name you can remember, but I wouldn't use the company or family name or give a location or department name either. That way, the hacker wont know where the router is located or who it belongs to.
Turn off the SSID broadcast. If the broadcast is turned off, a hacker can only find your network if they already know the exact SSID name. That's the reason you want to give it a name you can remember because you will have to tell that name to every computer that you want to connect to it.
These steps will make your network safe from all but the most determined hacker. So far, there is no absolute security with a wireless network, but you can make it really difficult for them to get into yours. Just like car security, they will probably go down the street to an easy target.
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