General Wireless Inquiry...

Question

I was in a Net+ class recently and a brief side discussion came up during the wireless chapter. Brief because there wasn't much to be covered in wireless networking since it isnt really the staple in business right now.

The discussion led to a funny story where the teachers neighbor was using a wireless router in a peer to peer network and the teacher kept seeing signs of another computer in his own wireless network. So happens that their homes were just close enough that the broadcast was crossing between their networks and he showed his neighbor how he could basically hack into his network from next door.

Now Ive not had a lot of network experience, never been able to afford more than one computer at a time and I learn best by experience so I guess I'm a layperson in this particular subject.

My question is can anyone tell me what the advantages and disadvantages are pertaining to security issues with a wired versus a wireless network broadcasting to the internet. Now I know that a wireless router cant go much farther than an RJ-45 anyways when youre talking about long distances but I guess thats why my question is so generalized.

I'm just looking for any and all advantages and disadvantages with wired vs wireless networking but particularly when it comes to security.

Any help with this would be great, thanks

mattcowger · Answer

Well, in general, with any kind of wireless system, you are broadcasting the data that you send. Its there for everyone to listen to if they wish, without your knowldge.

Hence, you should be using encryption. The earlier standard, WEP (Wired Equivalency Protocol) is a very light, low level encryption that is easily broken by someone who wants to see your traffic. Its still better than nothing though.

If you want REAL encryption, you ned to get a router and cards that support WPA-PSK (Wireless Protected Access-Pre Shared Key), which will encrypt your data (usually) using AES-128, the current government stnard for encryption.

packerman8 · Answer

All Buffalo Technologies Product offers this type of Security! I highly recommend all Buffalo Tech Products. If you do setup a Wireless Network, Make sure that you turn off SSID Broadcast, and setup at least Mac Address Filtering since this will keep computers out of your network that you don't want on your network.

Lance R.

mattcowger · Answer

Actually, any newly WiFi certified procduct supports WPA...its part of the certification requirement. In general, turning of SSID broadcast wont help you gain anymore security if you have MAC filtering enabled.

ArachNoir · Answer

Thanks a lot for the help guys. Information is always a good thing. I think thats what I love about online forums. So the encryption is just configured into the routers packet broadcast ?

mattcowger · Answer

Correct - if you enable WPA, the router does internal encryption on every frame sent.

johnallg · Answer

And with sniffer software and a few hours, it is easy to capture then spoof the MAC security, wep key, and SSID name.  WPA is supposed to help allieviate that hacking.

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General Wireless Inquiry...

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