RE: home wireless router good practices for security

["Aditya [ Aditya Lalit Deshmukh ]" <aditya () online nailed org>]

1. wireless encryption wont make any nocicable diffence in your network performance
2. dont know
3. 3 suggestions
        a. install a personal firewall for your os 
        b. setup a vpn if you are paranoid after you have enabled WEP - makes a 10% performance loss but worth it 
        c. setup snort with the relevent signatures

-aditya 


-----Original Message-----
From: Steve [mailto:securityfocus () delahunty com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 12:03 AM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: home wireless router good practices for security


So I went out and purchased a wireless router (Linksys 802.11b) for home
since it was so inexpensive and actually less cost than the wireless access
points I was trying to get via eBay.  Got it home, installed my wireless
network card (SMC), powered on the router, attached it to a port on my other
wired linksys router, and boom it worked great.  Then about 5 minutes after
I sent an instant message to my neighbor (fellow IT friend) he was on my
network.  So I took the steps that Linksys recommends below, seems good (to
me).
    Change the default SSID
    Disable SSID Broadcasts
    Change the default password for the Administrator account
    Enable WEP 128-bit Encryption
Linksys also recommends these other measures, I have not implemented:
    Enable MAC Address Filtering
    Change the SSID periodically
    Change the WEP encryption keys periodically.

My Questions:

1) Anyone know how much enabling 128-bit encryption will hurt my wireless
performance?

2) Does setting the SSID for my wireless NIC then keep me from getting onto
other wireless networks like when traveling?  I ask since that setting was
set to ANY before I changed it to the SSID that I set for my wireless
router.

3) What else should I really do to protect my home network?



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