Wireless security - WEP not Ok ?

[Ex_PC_Puke]

Thinings I have learned in the past few days of getting my wireless network running:

http://www.lanarchitect.net/Articles/Wireless/SecurityRating/

http://www.comnews.com/stories/articles/0604/0604new_practices.htm

Looks like standard WEP is easily broken

Right now I have done the following to my DLINK-524

Turned off SSID
Changed the default router access IP address from 198. ......... to a unique address
Changed the admin and user passwds to strong passwds
Selected WPA-PSK encryption / security - using a strong passwd
Disabled remote router admin ability
Disabled the router from responding to external pings

I hope this should be fairly secure - but then I'm just a noob at wireless :biohazard

 

[Kokopelli]

WPA is not WEP. WPA is significantly more secure than WEP, so in that sense you are fine. Turning off SSID does not matter though, nor does changing the default router address.

If someone can pop WPA (or WEP for that matter) turning off SSID broadcast and changing the default address will not slow them down at all. Limiting to MAC address will slow them down a bit, but it is a speed bump not a road block.

WPA is a non trivial thing to crack. Brute forcing the password would likely be the easiest way. So make the shared key a mixture of upper and lower case letters, and at least one number and it is unlikely to fail a dictionary attack. Unless someone really has it out for you though, you are fine. It might be worth the effort of cracking WEP if the AP was in a prime location, but there are enough easy targets that cracking WPA is not worth it.

 

[inflexion]

yea exactly thats why ive just done whats above but still stuck with the default WEP encryption because i dont think no one hates me that much round here