On The Current State of WiFi Security

An anonymous reader writes "A Flexbeta article covers the basics of WiF security. The article mentions mentions various ways of securing a WiFi network, how easy it is to crack WEP, and what the IEEE is doing about WiFi security. From the article: 'In order to address the security issues of WEP and the current Wi-Fi standards of 802.11a/b/g, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is developing a new standard that is called 802.11i. This standard was developed with security in mind. The new standard implements new security entitled Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which takes advantage of the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), is easier to setup using a pre-shared key, and can use RADIUS authentication.'"

Comments

Re:Why should I care?

[Redshift]

Supposing it was a terrorist or a pedophile? How would you like Homeland Security or the FBI knocking on your door, asking you deep questions and impounding all your computer equipment for investigation? The suspicious activity did all originate from your IP address, after all.

And how secure do you think your computer really is? When it is behind your router it has the advantage of being somewhat obscured to the rest of the world by NAT. A hacker inside your own network just has your software firewall to break down - one step closer. Furthermore, if he is able to get access to your router he probably also has access to everything you send - are you sure you want all that to be logged?

You are very naive.

Re:None of which will matter

[B'Trey]

Mind you I don't recommend that you turn on SSID broadcast, or turn off mac addr. filtering, but, these options will diter only novice users from stumbling accidently on your WLAN.

Isn't that the point? If a knowledable and determined hacker wants to break into your network, chances are they're going to succeed unless you're a security expert yourself and highly vigilent.

I could write an article entitled "The six dumbest ways to secure your house." I'd start out with something like: "Locking your front door. People put strong locks on the door, when right next to it you have a windows made of fragile glass! Hello?!? Anyone with a brick can knock out the glass and walk right in!!!"

No, a MAC filter doesn't make your network impregnible. And locking your front door doesn't turn your house into Fort Knox. But if you're not Fort Knox, you don't need to have Fort Knox security. Make breaking into your network and effort and most people want bother. There's likely someone down the street that's broadcasting their SID and has no security at all. Why are they going to bother messing with you?