Cable Forum - Secure Your Wireless Network.

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- - Secure Your Wireless Network. (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=8435)

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Dont know if this will be legible :(

I would have expected it to be on that screen. Its not!!

OK what about within the WAN menu?

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proppinupthebar

I would have expected it to be on that screen. Its not!!

OK what about within the WAN menu?

ermm....what are you looking for? :confused:

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramrod

ermm....what are you looking for? :confused:

Sorry, the option to hide your SSID.

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

MAC filtering looks to be on, but you may have to click on that dot to the left of the device name, and hit apply.

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Everything cool guys ?

Fel asleep last night and missed all the by the look of it. :)

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proppinupthebar

MAC filtering looks to be on, but you may have to click on that dot to the left of the device name, and hit apply.

When I do that it just takes me back ons screen and when I click on connections again the dot is empty again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuartbe

Everything cool guys ?

Probably :)

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuartbe

Ramrod - Will research this for you

dilligaf1701 - No problem m8... Give me shout when you have the new gear.

Just to let you know I got my wireless access point and laptop card this morning - and it's all working and secure now :)

Despite belkin putting the wrong cd in the box :( Still once I sussed that out and downloaded the drivers it was all pretty straight forward.

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Guys, of relevance to this thread

For specific instructions for securing your WLAN for Linksys users see the following guide....

Linksys KB - Securing your wireless network

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuartbe

Here is a bit of info on securing a wireless lan....

<snip>
A brief description of WPA:

WPA is a security technology for wireless networks.
(Also Known As: Wi-Fi Protected Access)

WPA improves on the authentication and encryption features of WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). In fact, WPA was developed by the networking industry in response to the shortcomings of WEP.

Why WPA is better than WEP:

One of the key technologies behind WPA is the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). TKIP addresses the encryption weaknesses of WEP. Another key component of WPA is built-in authentication that WEP does not offer. With this feature, WPA provides roughly comparable security to VPN tunneling with WEP, with the benefit of easier administration and use.

One variation of WPA is called WPA Pre Shared Key or WPA-PSK for short. WPA-PSK is a simplified but still powerful form of WPA most suitable for home Wi-Fi networking. To use WPA-PSK, a person sets a static key or "passphrase" as with WEP. But, using TKIP, WPA-PSK automatically changes the keys at a preset time interval, making it much more difficult for hackers to find and exploit them. (Many Thanks to s1lv3r for this info)

I'm also offered RADIUS and WPA RADIUS. These look like they are less secure than WPA but more secure than WEP (as those are top and bottom of the list).

How do they fit into this security scenario?

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SMHarman

I'm also offered RADIUS and WPA RADIUS. These look like they are less secure than WPA but more secure than WEP (as those are top and bottom of the list).

How do they fit into this security scenario?

To use radius you need a radius server like the ad in to ISA server. Its not realy needed for a home network. WPA is generaly regarded to be more secure than wep but to be honest you need a fair bit of hardware and determination to break 128 bit wep. Not something the average person is going to try.

HTH

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Just in case any of you are not aware.

When using WEP or even better WPA you need to make sure you use a very strong password.

There is a pretty good password generator here

You may find it usefull :)

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Hi CF and all, new member but been following a lot of the posts recently (keeping an inPhormed view).

My question reference securing wifi is how much does higher encryption slow down todays typical laptops.

I secured my daughters (Vista home basic, 1gb ram, pentium M....yep wish we waited for dual core but I digress), with WPA+PSK 128 bit key. Ever since she has experienced occasional freeze of her computer.

Ideally we want good security, recently I enabled MAC filtering too, but would lowering the key to 64 bit help her CPU cope better?, I have a feeling this is the root of her problems.

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

1. :WELCOME:

2. I'm with you, I don't think the encryption is what's causing her problems (although it's certainly possible.

You can rule encryption out as the cause of the problems quite simply, just turn it all off again :) If her system speeds up then it's the encryption causing the slowdown, if it doesn't then we know that we need to be looking for something else.

---------- Post added at 07:32 ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 ----------

Forgot to say.....don't leave the encryption switched off - a slightly slower computer (until we can figure out what's up) is always better than an insecure one.

Re: Secure Your Wireless Network.

Hi Raistlin, turning off encryption does seem to help the system slightly, but we cant replicate the circumstances where the system locks up. I think I need to delve into the depths of her event logs.
I think this problem is going to take time to narrow down though so will get back if I find anything in there. I also think her machine isnt quite up to running a 'settled in' Vista, with multiple communications programs open, Firefox with multiple tabs each looking at different streams of Anime cartoons, Live messenger with multiple conversations going on.... but we cant change that because thats how my daughter wants the computer to perform.
I have checked how many background apps are running using msconfig and to be fair there doesnt seem anything unusual there, apart from Kirby (scheduler). Its running Avast for protection (we got rid of Norton from day one - too heavy on any system really), occasional sweeps with Spybot and CCleaner, an up to date hosts file from mvps.org..... the problem originally started soon after we established a wifi setup for her (other computers in the house are on LAN), previously her wifi connection was through a BT home hub (which I eventually slaved on a static IP through a Netgear DG834v2, because we needed a scheduled firewall). Now we have changed provider through cable and have another netgear router (WGR614v6). So I dont think it has anything to do with the routers, and my old Compaq Presario r3000 (Athlon version) has no problems with wifi.

I can only conclude at the moment that something about her setup is one straw too many for the donkeys back, and increasing security is the only change I have done before the problem started. Vista SP1 has installed since the problem started so the problem has existed before and after SP1.

Edit: Forgot to mention the laptop is this one
http://support.packardbell.com/uk/it...n=109278000139

Edit 2: We also do occasional sweeps (in safe mode) with MWAV (Microworld Anti Virus - EScan).