Mac Filtering

WPA2 is all of the security you should need.  MAC filtering is usually not necessary and it's not secure.  It's best used as a management tool where all of the clients are trusted.

 

The problem with MAC filtering is that trusted clients send their MAC addresses in the clear when they are associating.  Furthermore, most network card drivers (and even most operating systems) make it easy to spoof the MAC address of a card.

 

All a hacker has to do is grab a trusted MAC out of the air and then assign it to his card.  MAC filtering will certainly keep the neighbors out, but it's easy to workaround if you know what you're doing. 

thanks..

would it benifical to enable it for the local clients in addition to the WPA..

Not from a security standpoint ... actually I can't think of any real reason to do it.

thanks. Was really the answere I was expecting..

>i have 5 computers, so if i did mac filtering on all 5, would that mean that only these 5 computers would be able to use my network?

 

First off, it's worth noting that some routers apply MAC filtering only to wireless connections while others apply it to wired clients as well.  This is strictly firmware depedent as it's all a software operation.

 

Setting up MAC filtering will allow only network connections from those 5 MAC addresses to connect.  The router has no idea what computer is connecting with that MAC address.  As I stated before, MAC addresses can easily be forged, so this is not a good security measure.

 

 

i have 5 computers, so if i did mac filtering on all 5, would that mean that only these 5 computers would be able to use my network?

demisisDB

 

thanks for the info,,,,i have wpa2 i believe it is , encription... last night i did a bios upgrade on the notebook, and after the bios upgrade , i could not get into my network, though i had excellant network strength... my phassphase had to be redone , router and notebook, and then it connected to my network...then i still could not get a web page, rebooted router and modem,,,that did the trick.... all this over a bios upgrade

weird ...  i really can't think of why that would have happened ... but such is life