wireless, secure?

Question

been advised to use a wireless router on broadband to enable dual internet use in 1 household. But is'nt wireless less secure?

Answer 1

You can breach wireless systems in less than three minutes using a small number of utilities readily available on the internet, all you need is the know how (also available on the internet). It will take you a bit longer the first few times, but as you get experience it gets alot quicker.

So to now answer your question. If you think you are being targeted then don't use wireless, just hardwire cat5 to the router.

Answer 2

Strictly speaking: Yes, wireless is less secure than wired.

Practically-speaking: you can secure wireless to the point where it's generally a non-issue.


To the first point:

If you are super-paranoid about security, you can still enable your household to share internet use by using only a wired router. That is, you can purchase a wireless router, and disable its wireless abilities and just using its four wired ports. Or for less money, purchase a wired-only router (e.g. Linksys BEFSR81).


To the second point: Here are tips to make your wireless network more secure.

For the rest of this post, I am assuming you purchase the Linksys Wireless router -- the extremely popular WRT54G. However, feel free to buy any consumer router (SMC, Belkin, D-Link, etc.), because they all have the same features.

P.S. Wireless routers constantly go on sale for about $40; monitor www.bensbargains.net for about a week. I guarantee you you'll find one on sale.

Take these steps, ordered in ease [easy to hard] and level of security [each step adds more security]. However, each successive step takes more work / a bit more complex.

1. Change the default username and password to the router. You'll be shocked how many people do not do this.

2. Enable "MAC Address Filtering". Every computer's network / wireless card has a unique MAC address that looks like H8DV-JFCA-DDBE-23FM (a bunch of random numbers and letters). This step tells your router, "Don't let just any computer on this network -- only allow the computers I explicitly tell you... here are their MAC addresses. Don't let any other computer on."

(A) Read this: http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/doc/FAQ/macaddress.php to determine how to get the MAC addresses for your computer(s).

(B) See page 44 of the manual do see how to do this [if you are not using a Linksys router, just lookup "MAC Filter" in the manual].

3. Disable SSID broadcast. This takes 2 seconds. Every wireless network has a name, called an SSID. For instance, my network is called "BobNetwork". Many people leave the network name to the default name ("default" or "linksys"). Change your SSID to anything reasonable, i.e. "MyNetworkGetOff"; and disable the SSID broadcast.
This makes life slightly more difficult for you because you will then need to explicitly tell your laptop the SSID, instead of Windows automatically detecting it.



All steps above this step just makes it harder for an unauthorized person to get on your wireless network. However, the above steps do not encrypt the data that goes over the air. (Encryption is like putting all your network data through a secret-decoder ring, one that is practically impossible to break [but for full disclosure: the secret decoder ring can actually be broken with a lot of effort... by a lot of effort, I mean practically speaking no one is going to break your secret decoder ring because it's not worth the effort.])

Without encryption, an appropriately-motivated person could still "snoop" on certain aspects of your data. This is because information you send to unencrypted websites [websites that start with http: and not https:] are transmitted through the air without being put through the secret decoder ring.

Keep in mind, however, that Oinformation you send to encrypted / secure websites [sites that start with https, such as most bank websites] are already secure because the information is encrypted at your computer before even going over the air.

In any case, if you are paranoid about the lack of encryption, then the fourth and final step gives you the best protection [puts everything through a secret decoder ring, not just "secure" (https) websites like banks and Ebay]. However, this next step can be a pain to implement because, frankly, Windows makes it hard. You have been warned.

4. Turn on encryption.

If you are doing this step, I recommend that you NOT do step 3. I'm not going to bother explaining, but trust me it will be much easier to do, and does not really lower your overall security.

Furthermore, if you are doing this step, I recommend that you simply ask your geeky friend from high school to help you implement it. It's not super hard, but can be frustrating because, again, Windows makes it hard; and it's just a bit of a pain.


For your information, I only do #1 and #2. I live in a standalone house, with 1.5 acres of land around me. If I lived in an apartment building or townhouse, I would do #1, #2, and #3. If I lived in an apartment building and worked for the FBI, I would do #1, #2, and #4.

Almost all businesses do #1, #2, #3, #4, and more stuff that is completely not worth discussing here.

Answer 3

much less secure, but you can enable wep, read the manual

without wep, the entire neighbourhood will have free broadband access at your expense

Answer 4

you can make your wireless secure by blocking outsider and setting code or something

Answer 5

Yea, but what have you got to hide?

Answer 6

use WEP, WPA, TKRIP, or RADIUS