what about protecting your Network: (BSIT220 week11)

Secure your wireless network

Securing your wireless network is more important than we think. Indeed, WEP ( Wired Equivalent Privacy ) and WPA same ( Wi-Fi Protected Access ) contain security vulnerabilities hackers making our connection relatively easy .

We'll see how secure our WiFi network in 5 points after giving explanations on the need to secure our wireless network.

little threat anywhere one is?

It is not possible to control the range of the wireless network, which will most likely even in your neighborhood. And even if you know your neighbors and think they will not do anything wrong, you should know that there are practices intended to search for Wi-Fi networks open or poorly securedto connect to perform there all sorts of malicious actions.

Note for example the fact to intercept data transmitted in clear or does perform hacks (accounts, systems or even movies) through your access point and you have to carry the responsibility . These practices are called the WarDriving and Warchalking . The first is to look for open networks without son or unsafe via a smartphone or a laptop, and the second is to use symbols as tags to the streets to report open Wi-Fi networks.

A person performing the WarDriving using a car.

WEP is it really so Imperfect?

WEP uses the key encryption algorithm symmetric RC4 and a checksum to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of exchanges between machines. The problem is that this key is static and therefore shared between all the machines connected to the same box. Which allows find it by simply communicating with the network.

Back in 2001, researchers found that the first bytes of stream used for encryption are not random, and by observing a large number of encrypted messages could actually find the key ... in minutes !

While WPA is better?

To address the weaknesses of WEP, the IEEE has developed another network security protocol without son called WPA .

WPA provides better data encryption than WEP because it uses key TKIP ( Temporal Key Integrity Protocol ) dynamic. So the WPA enables the use of one key per machine connected to a wireless network.

WPA keys are automatically generated by the wireless access point.

TKIP enhances security over WEP because:

• It doubles the size of the initialization vector (random bits added to the data). Programs to easily determine the WEP key is also a list of initialization vectors to carry out the attack.
• WPA also doubles the integrity of the message code from 4 to 8 bytes.
• The encryption keys are periodically and automatically generated for each customer.

The Wi-Fi Alliance (the organization that owns the Wi-Fi brand) then created a new certification called WPA2 for hardware that supports 802.11i standard. WPA2 is based on WPA, it supports encryption AES instead of RC4 and offers new features such as the "Key Caching" and "Pre-Authentication".

To summarize, the WPA-2 offers compared to WPA:

• Security and more efficient mobility through client authentication regardless of where it is located.
• Integrity and confidentiality guaranteed by a strong dynamic key distribution mechanism.
• Flexibility through fast and secure re-authentication.

Posted by Ed

Find out more:

How to Secure Your Wireless Network

Is Your Router Easy to Hack? Learn How to Properly Secure Your Router

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