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We posted a while back about ways to get an auto generated security password for wireless access.  We came across a site called ‘GRC‘ today that claims to give you a UNIQUE and perfectly secure encryption password for your wireless setup.  In our eyes possibly a little over the top for most home users, but if you are particularly security conscious or want to know a bit more about security passwords then the site might be worth a read.

By security passwords we are talking about WEP/WPA security…also known as the network key required to access a secure wireless network.  Hope it is of interest to some, we found it a good read, although a bit long in places ;o)

No excuses not to be wifi secure! )

In Step 1 we looked at the equipment you require, in Step 2 we are looking at Security, this is something I often find people don’t bother with! Not Good! If you don’t secure your network you are risking the following:

• People logging onto your broadband connection and using up all your bandwidth,
• Accessing inappropriate sites over your connection.
• Hackers looking at all you are doing…like buying that nice new DVD from Amazon…ooo Credit Card Details being stolen.
• Ok, you get the picture!

To set this up it generally requires logging into the Wireless Router / Access Point with an address that probably is in the form 192.168.x.x through Internet Explorer, Firefox or your chosen web browser.

Encryption

Then you will have the option of Wireless Security, the two most common forms of Wireless Encryption on home routers are WEP and WPA-PSK.

WPA-PSK is more secure than the WEP encryption, but WEP is better than nothing! The way these encryption keys work is like this:

1. The router has a security key
2. You tell the machine wanting to access the wireless network this security key. This is requested when you try to access a secure network.
3. Then the two devices can talk to each other

(that is the simple explanation anyway )

Basically what this is doing is encrypting the data sent between your laptop and the router so anyone trying to read the data you are sent would need to ‘guess’ the key. If you didn’t have this setup you would be sending the data as plain text! Not good!

Three things to remember when creating your security key:

• If it is easy to remember it is probably easy to guess!
• Don’t use a key or pass-phrase that is associated to you
• The longer the key the hard it is to guess or the longer it will take a computer to crack!

If you need help creating the key check out a former Quick Tip on Security Key Generating.

Mac Address Filtering

Another layer of added security is MAC address filtering. Each network device wired or wireless has a unique ‘address’, usually in the form something like: 00-00-00-00-00. On a router you can implement filtering so you can tell it which MAC addresses you want to access the router and therefore the network and internet. To find the MAC code:

In windows

1. Open up command prompt (Start > Run > cmd > Enter)
2. Type the following: ipconfig /all
3. It will be shown as Physical Address

Specifically how to set these security features up is difficult because each router is different so you should have instructions on how to do this either in a paper manual or on the CD which came with the router / access point.

So there we go, no excuses, you now know to secure your network! The third and final part of this series next week is Extending your network!

This weeks quick tip is about wireless security! When setting up your WEP or WPA encryption key don’t use your usual password for the key, or to generate the key! You need to think of something that isn’t at all related to you, that people can’t guess! OR Do what I do…use a key generator:

A couple of examples we use:

For A Wep Key: http://www.andrewscompanies.com/tools/wep.asp

For a WPA-PSK: http://www.kurtm.net/wpa-pskgen/

This weeks quick tip is about problems connecting to wireless networks. There are so many possibilities here but the one I want to highlight this week becomes apparent when you are trying to connect to a wireless network that you know works!

Commonly a network SSID (name) does not get changed so if you buy a Netgear router chances are the SSID is NETGEAR. If you are like a number of people that connect to a number of different networks and already have a NETGEAR profile in your Wireless Access list and then go to connect to another one with the same SSID you will have problems connecting, it won’t ask for the WEP/encryption key and will just not connect! The reason being that it thinks it has the information to connect to that Network.

Answer: Remove the other profile from your list of Wireless Networks and then try to reconnect. If you regularly connect to 2 networks with the same SSID then try to get the SSID changed It is good practice to have a unique SSID anyway