How secure is 802.11?

[MustISO]

If I set this up in my house would it be really easy for someone to get in or is sniffing the only real risk? I will have a firewall but I'm not very familiar with wireless security.

 

[CedarTeeth135]

Read

this

and

this

 

[Lord Evermore]

How secure is 802.11?

I can see what you're wearing.

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore

How secure is 802.11?

I can see what you're wearing.

Lol and what he ate for lunch :Q

It all but qualifies for a negative security rating 😉 As always use strong encryption on your sensitive data (ssh/ssl) and lock down your network!

 

[Lord Evermore]

By the way, you should probably hide those things a little better, your mom doesn't even need to come in and "clean up a bit" to find 'em.

And I stuck some photographic film on the wall outside your room. I'm a little concerned about some dark spots I'm seeing, so I'd recommend you call your doctor.

 

[bsobel]

802.11 what? We are all presuming you mean the wireless security of 802.11 a/b/g devices, but the 802.11 working groups cover alot of ground. Are you asking how secure is current wireless 802.11a/b/g along with wep?

Bill

 

[cmetz]

802.11 security is basically not. I strongly suggest running IPsec over top of 802.11 if security matters.

http://www.sonicwall.com/products/sohotzw.html is a new product - still pricey for home use I'm afraid (ca. $650) that is an IPsec VPN concentrator, SOHO router, and access point all in one, including licenses for a Windows-based IPsec client. Hopefully more and cheaper products like this will soon appear.

 

[JackMDS]

See - http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=1032918

 

[MustISO]

Thanks for the links, I'll do some more research.

bsobel, I was asking about 802.11b with 128bit WEP.

 

[Oaf357]

My opinion of wireless

 

[ktwebb]

If you want to get real elaborate you can put the AP outside your firewall and use something like VPN or Radius authentication to get in but for the average Joe, if you use WEP (changing your keys frequently and using a difficult passphrase), MAC filtering, turn your SSID off, turn off DHCP and change the default subnet, then use Access Lists if your AP supports it, your pretty safe. I wouldn't put my credit card numbers on my PC or anything but it is not something a casual wardriver would bother with, much less be able to get into in a reasonable amount of time. If you don't hammer your network non-stop then they can pretty much forget it. I'd think you'd notice a car camped out at your house for a day or two. Clearly, 802.11 security measures are not enterprise ready, well not affordably anyway, but for the home user, given the proper attention, there should be very little concern about the data on your rigs.