Wireless Security
To secure your wireless network, a general understanding of the technology is needed.
To secure your wireless network, a general understanding of the technology is needed. It may be best to read up on our other wireless networking (Insecurity) article first. Once that is done, the following general steps can make your network much more secure.
Since most computer users with malicious intent are looking for the easy kill, doing even the most simple of steps can stop them even before they start. However, if the data being passed is of a critical or sensitive nature, more advanced steps may be needed. Here are some general tips on securing your wireless network. Most of these can be found in the manual that came with your wireless access point.
Disable SSID Broadcast
The SSID is the name of your access point. Enabling broadcast will send this name out over the airwaves. With this option disabled, simple tools such as NetStumbler will not find your network. More advanced tools, however, will still be able to pick up that name through passive sniffing.
Enable WEP or WPA
WEP, or wired equivalent privacy, is one of the main built in security features on 802.11b and g networks. Enabling this on both the access points and clients (and disallowing computers to connect if they do not have WEP or WPA) can help secure your network. Even though WEP can be cracked using specialized tools, your network becomes less of a target to those with malicious intent.
Enable MAC Filtering
Every network card, including wireless cards, have a MAC address. You can set your access point to only allow certain MAC addresses to enter your network. That way, only the users you set up have access to the wireless access point. However, a MAC address can be captured and spoofed (a user can change his/her MAC address), but this still adds another layer of security and difficulty to entering a network.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006