• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

How Secure is Wireless without Encryption enabled??

E

Energenie

Member
Was just curious how secure wireless networking is without the 64 or 128 bit encryption enabled. Have noticed it does hurt performance to a certain degree. I'm using a Linksys WAP11 and WPC11 Pc Card if that makes any difference, I've got the SSID set to something different and the MAC address of the PC Card entered. Is this good enough?? Also running Zone Alarm on all computers. Thanks much everyone for the input has helped out very much 😉
 
Running wireless without encryption is kinda like having broadband without a firewall - just not a good idea. Use the 128 bit as 64-bit is just too weak anymore.
 
Even the 128 bit Wep is very crackable. MAC address filtering like what your describing is your best defense IMO.
 
I hope the people recognize that at default setting without MAC Address or any WEP On, any one who is within the range with a Wireless card can ?listen? to your traffic, even if they don?t want to.

MAC address is very efficient against casual ?listening?.

In case someone really wants to Hack your system, it seems that nothing would help.
 
MAC's can be spoofed. Netstumber and Airsnort are some popular air sniffing programs used for war driving. Changing your SSID, WEP, MAC filtering, VPN. Hell, radius server in the enterprise, yet all can be circumvented. IEEE is "working" on it.
 
Running without encryption will invite wardrivers to possibly use your bandwidth for whatever they want to do (download stuff, hack sites from your network, etc.).

The reason being, that running without enryption requires no effort whatsoever for someone to use your bandwidth (other than driving by your house/apartment).

You have to look at the encryption that is used in WIFI to being similar to the locks on your doors. It will only keep the non-determined theives out.

The built in WEP is fairly easy to crack with software that is readily available on the internet.

Now, the determined theives, they will be on your system unless you go above and beyond to secure your net (ie. put the AP on one side of a firewall and require a VPN connection to access your network).

VPN is pretty secure and not very easy to crack, and pretty much (in my mind anyway), the only way to have a "secure" wireless system.

Just my 2 cents.
 
But then again, if you're in an isolated area where you either know the people around you and they have no way of getting into your network or you would know if someone was parked outside your house using your wireless, then you would be fine w/o encryption IMO. I'm setting up my wireless LAN next week and I won't be using encryption. After some thought and reading responses on here for many weeks as well as reading articles, I determined that I will be able to make my network secure enough for what I need w/o WEP. I live on the corner of a street with 3 people that would be within range, and none of them even have computers or know that I have computers--heck, most all of the people on my street and the ones across as well as behind are at work all day, have very young kids and I would bet none of them are very computer literate. So, by taking precautions with MAC filtering, passwords on shares, static IP's, firewalls, and simple stuff like that, I personally don't worry about it. And as for people driving up and using my Internet, I know whenever someone parks outside my house anyway, so if there is someone with a laptop, I'll take care of them... 😀

Anyway, to sum things up, I think it really depends on your enviroment and the people around you. In my case, I have determined that WEP is not something _I_ need when other precautions are taken--I would much rather have the speed as I have no worries about the people around me.

I'm interested in hearing what others have to say though...
 
Well, it really isn't about the people that live around you, it is people that are looking for a little free access. Whether they want that access for just routing network access or to do hacking from your net.

If you look at this link, WAP Database, you will see the amount of WAP's that people have discovered just be driving around. They list the coordinates of sites that they have found and whether they had encryption enabled or not.

Now, if someone that lives near you happens to be a wardriver, drives through your neighborhood and logs that your WAP is there and unencryted, that person might upload that data to the above site.

Now, that one person might not even care about your network. But, someone who would like to do some malicious things that lives relatively close to you notices that your network is unsecure. Well, he just decides to drive by and do what he will. Not really too far from reality.

Now, is WEP really THAT inconvenient?

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top