The best way to ensure the security of your wireless network by far is to perform your own regular security audits. Far from being a complex task, performing an audit involves taking many of the same steps that a hacker might use to try and compromise your network, and using common “tools of the trade” […]

Most access point hardware includes a built-in DHCP server to automatically allocate IP addresses to your wireless clients. In many cases, this range is the same as the range used for other Internet-sharing services, such as Windows ICS. Because of this, you’ll need to be careful of conflicts, since multiple devices (including other access points) […]

The fact that numerous security issues with WEP have been brought to light hasn’t gone unnoticed in the eyes of vendors that manufacturer Wi-Fi equipment. Although not yet officially standardized by the IEEE (the same folks that (standardized) the 802.11 Wi-Fi standards, the industry has come together in support of a new wireless encryption method […]

Because Wi-Fi networks use radio signals for communication, the packets transferred between wireless clients and access points are literally floating in thin air, for the entire world to see. Even without the ability to associate with an access point, any user running a wireless packet capture utility like AirSnort can literally capture packets and view […]

In much the same way that a traditional Windows network is identified by a workgroup or domain name, wireless networks are “named” using what is known as a Service Set Identifier, or SSID. The default SSID configured on an access point varies between manufacturers, but is always set to a default value in a manner […]

One of the easiest ways to improve the security of your access points is to implement MAC address security. Available on even entry-level wireless access points and routers, this feature allows you to control exactly which wireless clients can associate with an access point according to their Media Access Control (MAC) address. If this feature […]

The first and most important tip towards securing a wireless network is to change the default password of your access point. When vendors ship these hardware devices, the password to allow full administrator access is almost always very basic examples include “admin”, or even the manufacturer’s name in many cases - and are well documented […]

Security in the wired world has typically focused on keeping users from the outside world (the Internet) out of private networks through the implementation of firewalls, both hardware- and software-based. Unfortunately, security issues with wireless networks are much more complex, since it’s typically not users from the Internet who pose the most direct threat. Instead, […]

Over the course of the past three years, wireless technologies have taken the networking world by storm. Where once a length of Ethernet cable tethered most users, they can now roam freely within most home and office environments, connecting to both internal systems and the Internet from laptops and PDAs with few constraints. While this […]