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[Lhadatt]

This is a good article on wireless network security and effectively covers all the bases.

READ ME NOW

The only thing I disagree on is the assertion that WEP is "good enough" for residential areas, while WPA doesn't need to be used unless you're a business. WPA should be used all the time, by everyone who can use it. Your network is insecure if you're not on WPA with MAC filtering.

(Yes, I know it's insecure even then since WPA can be cracked, but the last I checked it was much harder to compromise, so it's a security-through-obscurity thing.)

Hopefully this will cut down on the wifi configuration/security threads that seem to pop up every week...

 

[DarienA]

This is a good article on wireless network security and effectively covers all the bases.

READ ME NOW

The only thing I disagree on is the assertion that WEP is "good enough" for residential areas, while WPA doesn't need to be used unless you're a business. WPA should be used all the time, by everyone who can use it. Your network is insecure if you're not on WPA with MAC filtering.

(Yes, I know it's insecure even then since WPA can be cracked, but the last I checked it was much harder to compromise, so it's a security-through-obscurity thing.)

Hopefully this will cut down on the wifi configuration/security threads that seem to pop up every week...

Fat chance.

 

[Deg]

Yeah what new standards are there?

 

[DarienA]

Yeah what new standards are there?

Well pre-N devices are out there... but don't hold your breath on seeing the N standard finalized before sometime late next year... if even then.

BTW that whole broadcast SSID part is wrong, wrong, wrong... your SSID can still be pulled by a knowledgeable hacker.

 

[shuri]

CAN WE DOWNLOAD WIRELESS SECURITY FROM THE INTERNETS?!?!?


edit: Johnny Cage approves of this thread and would like to reminds everybody that online security is serious business for everyone. Everyone

 

[borghe]

the only thing you can do with WiFi is make it extremely difficult for hackers to break in. Though arguably with WPA and a key change every 30-60 minutes it will be almost impossible for a hacker to gain access to your network. MAC address filtering does nothing for hackers who would be able to break WEP/WPA anyway. a simple MAC spoofer gets around that real easily, considering they already have working MACs to collect data from anyway.

SSID broadcasting again only stops the advanced hackers. to get your info through airsnort or kismet they have to passively hit the networks anyway which then reveals ALL SSIDs in the area, broadcasting or not.

the bottom line is that IMHO WEP is in fact enough. If you have more than WEP (like what I've mentioned above) hackers can still get into your network. You can make it very difficult but with enough persistence they can get in (unless you go so far as randomply changing SSIDs as well). So taking into account that hackers can still get into your network if they really wanted to, about the only thing you CAN do is keep the average joe from stealing your internet, and WEP is more than enough for that.

Of course there are real ways to secure your network. Using an AP that requires 802.1x authentication and defaults you to an access-less VLAN without it is a great first step.

 

[truffleshuffle83]

im content with WEP because i live in an apartment complex where there are 13 unsecured wireless networks and like 2 secured, if someone wants something theyll hit the other 13 before mine

 

[Lhadatt]

CAN WE DOWNLOAD WIRELESS SECURITY FROM THE INTERNETS?!?!?

YES, ACTUALLY

In reality, the only reason I can recommend that product is if you want to run WPA on a pre-Win2000 computer. It will do WPA for Win9x/ME free, no need for a subscription.

borghe: My take on this is yes, you're right, wireless security as it exists now on the consumer products is a joke. I'm content with WPA, though, since any break-in will demonstrate that the cracker has some degree of technical knowledge and took to a [small] bit of effort to break in to my network. This should be legally defendable, as I've taken the steps available to me through the use of my router to protect it.

If that doesn't work, I can always sue my router's manufacturer for advertising it as "secured".

 

[maharg]

(Yes, I know it's insecure even then since WPA can be cracked, but the last I checked it was much harder to compromise, so it's a security-through-obscurity thing.)

Plz to not dilute terminology. This is not what security through obscurity means.

 

[Lhadatt]

Plz to not dilute terminology. This is not what security through obscurity means.

In cryptography and computer security, security through obscurity (sometimes security by obscurity) is to some a controversial principle in security engineering, which attempts to use secrecy (of design, implementation, etc.) to ensure security. A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them.

Similar definitions are found on other sites. I believe the majority disagrees with you.

In my way of thinking, a certain small percentage of people who might want on my wireless LAN will know how to crack WPA. An smaller percentage of those people will know how to spoof MAC addresses and crack WPA. An even smaller percentage of those people will know how to compromise everything.

So - given that my network is most likely as "secure" as I will bother to make it, I am relying on the obscurity of the knowledge of how to crack it, as well as the obscurity of the location. My LAN doesn't really reach too far away from my house, so I'm not worried about my neighbors cracking it and such.

And hey, if someone's parked outside my house, I'll just call the cops.

 

[borghe]

I don't agree at all. Anyone who knows how to (or where to find how to) crack WPA also can sniff for non-broadcasted SSIDs and MAC addresses and also can without too much trouble spoof MACs and knock you off the network.

really none of this stuff is hard and heading down one path will pretty much by default open up the remaining paths to you pretty obviously.

this is why I said "WEP is enough". Because it will keep out the casual thief who put two and two together and realized he could get free internet from unsecured networks, but at the same time is just as relatively easy to break as WPA (they are the same methodology and you compromise them the exact same way).

as I said, there are ways to safeguard your network. change PSKs often, change SSIDs often, use 802.1x authentication in conjunction with a RADIUS/TACACS box and directed VLANs, etc. I mean my job professionally is to make sure our wireless implementation is as bulletproof as possible. but at the home this type of thing is rarely available. at least for now.

 

[maharg]

Similar definitions are found on other sites. I believe the majority disagrees with you.

WPA and WEP are both open cryptographic techniques. Their security lies primarily in the use of a secret shared key. The flaws are widely known and are possible for any cryptographic expert to audit. The part of that (and EVERY) definition you missed was the part where it says security through obscurity means it relies on the obscurity of the implementation or design to keep security.

For god's sake, no layman knows how to violate any encryption mechanism. By your interpretation of that definition, XOR encoding of a plaintext with a shared key is "security by obscurity" just because your grandma can't crack it.

Please don't ever use this term again. Go read some real security textbooks or something before you try and use it.

Or just read more than the opening blurb:

In cryptography, the argument against security by obscurity is based on Kerckhoffs' principle from the late 1880s, which states that system designers should assume that the entire design of a security system is known to all attackers, with the exception of the cryptographic key: "the security of a cypher resides entirely in the key". Claude Shannon rephrased it as "the enemy knows the system". Historically, security through obscurity has been a very feeble reed on which to rely in cryptographic matters. Obscure codes, cyphers, and crypto systems have repeatedly fallen to attack regardless of the obscurity of their vulnerabilities.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

WPA and WEP are both open cryptographic techniques. Their security lies primarily in the use of a secret shared key. The flaws are widely known and are possible for any cryptographic expert to audit. The part of that (and EVERY) definition you missed was the part where it says security through obscurity means it relies on the obscurity of the implementation or design to keep security.

For god's sake, no layman knows how to violate any encryption mechanism. By your interpretation of that definition, XOR encoding of a plaintext with a shared key is "security by obscurity" just because your grandma can't crack it.

Please don't ever use this term again. Go read some real security textbooks or something before you try and use it.

Or just read more than the opening blurb:

I think he was making the point that less people know how to crack WPA compared to WEP which is relatively wide open. I think his definition fits loosely, you're getting pretty antsy over a definition.

 

[maharg]

No, it really doesn't. And yes, I am. Call it a pet peeve of mine.

 

[borghe]

I think he was making the point that less people know how to crack WPA compared to WEP which is relatively wide open. I think his definition fits loosely, you're getting pretty antsy over a definition.

well, he is wrong, because cracking wep and wpa are entirely the same thing. they both wait for the same key to repeat to crack them. you actually don't crack them as much as exploit a flaw in the encryption. the only difficulty with WPA is by default you can have changing keys so usually it requires more data collection.

and without getting into the other arguments too much, maharg is entirely right about security through obscurity and lhadatt is entirely wrong. security through obscurity relies in fact on the concept that you will never be seen. you have no authentication on a box but no one will ever know the box is there so it is safe. what he is talking about is just how tough it is to get in and through which exploit. it has nothing to do with obscurity (which references security on the box, not the difficulty of the exploit)

 

[Lhadatt]

:lol

Consession granted to the uber network geeks. Go sniff your packets or something.

Let's establish a point to agree on: Consumer-grade network security sucks and really ought to be improved. That said, the least you can do is enable it, though it doesn't provide a hell of a lot of protection.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

well, he is wrong, because cracking wep and wpa are entirely the same thing. they both wait for the same key to repeat to crack them. you actually don't crack them as much as exploit a flaw in the encryption. the only difficulty with WPA is by default you can have changing keys so usually it requires more data collection.

Much to my regret i have never owned a wireless router so I don't know very much, but I was told by a couple of people that you can crack WEP with airsnort in 5 or so hours, how long does it take to crack WPA using the same method? Is it the exact same method?

Somebody in my building has a wireless signal that my laptop sometimes picks up, I wouldn't mind trying to crack it just to see if I could, I don't need to steal their bandwidth because uncapped internet comes with the flat im in.

 

[borghe]

Much to my regret i have never owned a wireless router so I don't know very much, but I was told by a couple of people that you can crack WEP with airsnort in 5 or so hours, how long does it take to crack WPA using the same method? Is it the exact same method?

it is the same methodology with WPA. WPA is based on WEP and uses the same random-yet-sequential patterns so all it is is a matter of getting enough packets from the network for the sequence to repeat itself. WEP is also a weak cryptography in general and we are getting to the point where powerful computers could likely break 56 and possibly even 128-bit WEP encryption in a reasonable time without the sequence repeating.

WPA seperates itself from WEP in defaulting to changing keys by default to changing every x amount of time. However with enough patience and enough connecting devices you should be able to sniff enough packets to discover what the default PSK is at which point changing keys are meaningless because you will be a participant of the network already.

802.1x changes things by forgoing pre-shared keys and instead bases the key on your authentication to the network (through RADIUS or certificates). So it is still using WPA for encryption, but the key is no longer a static PSK but instead an actual login to a network system (whatever backend you use to RADIUS). This makes it even more difficult to get access to the network.

Finally there is VLANing, which is where you setup multiple virtual LANs on your AP. Only one VLAN actually participates on your LAN and the other(s) exist in nowhere. When a device authenticates to the AP it defaults to a disconnected VLAN. Authentication across 802.1x then tells the AP what VLAN the device is supposed to participate on based on parameters sent back by the RADIUS server.

Of course there are ways around that stuff also, but hopefully by this point you have intrusion detection software setup locating attempts to bypass all of that and ready to lockout any such attempts.

the point that I was originally making is that no one except for corporate level entities need this type of thing. For the home the main (and possibly only) important thing is stopping Joe 6-pack next store from stealing your $40/month internet connection and giving you bad lag in BF2.

 

[fart]

concession, and you're an idiot.

i agree that there are about a million reasons why you should secure your network though. use good (highly random) passwords, change passphrases often, use embedded hardware that is thought to be fairly secure, filter by mac, don't broadcast ssid, use at least WPA/AES if not WPA2/AES. ALSO, key to security is host + network security, so leave XP's security options running (a/v, a/spyware, f/w default deny), keep up-to-date on patches, etc. even if you don't care about your own data and/or property, please keep in mind that when you're connected to the a global wan, your packets are a concern of others as well as yourself.

one of the reasons why security is such a major issue now is a) because most hosts are vulnerable to a very large number of attacks, and b) there's a very large cash incentive for the ethically flexible among us to exploit these hosts.