Clamping Down on Your Wireless Home Network’s Security

Clamping Down on Your Wireless
Home Network’s Security
Well, enough of the theory and background. Time to get down to business. In
this section, we discuss some of the key steps that you should take to secure
your wireless network from intruders. None of these steps are difficult, will
drive you crazy, or make your network hard to use. All that’s really required
is the motivation to spend a few extra minutes (after you’ve got everything
up and working) battening down the hatches and getting ready for sea. (Can
you tell that Pat used to be in the Navy?)
The key steps in securing your wireless network, as we see them, are the
following:
1. Change all the default values on your network.
2. Enable WEP.
3. Close your network to outsiders (if your access point supports this).
Hundreds of different access points and network adapters are available on
the market. Each has its own unique configuration software. (At least each
vendor does; and often, different models from the same vendor have different
configuration systems.) You need to RTFM (Read the Fine Manual!). We’re
going to give you some generic advice on what to do here, but you really,
really, really need to pick up the manual and read it before you do this to
your network. Every vendor has slightly different terminology and different
ways of doing things. If you mess up, you might temporarily lose wireless
access to your access point. (You should still be able to plug a computer in
with an Ethernet cable to gain access to the configuration system.) You might
even have to reset your access point and start over from scratch. So follow
the vendor’s directions (as painful at that may be — there’s a reason why
people buy For Dummies books). We tell you the main steps that you need to
take to secure your network; your manual will give you the exact line-by-line
directions on how to implement these steps on your equipment.
WEP key length: Do the math
If you’re being picky, you might notice that WEP
keys aren’t really as long as their names say
that they are. The first 24 bits of the key are actually
something called an initialization vector,
and the remaining bits comprise the key itself.
Therefore, 128-bit keys are really only 104 bits
long, and 64-bit keys are really only 40 bits long.
So when you enter a 128-bit key (and you do the
math), you’ll see that there are only 26 alphanumeric
characters (or digits) for you to enter in
the key (4 bits per digit × 26 = 104 bits). This isn’t
something that you really need to know
because everyone adds the 24 initialization
vector bits to the WEP key length number, but
just in case you were curious. . . .
Most access points also have some wired connections available — Ethernet
ports that you can use to connect your computer to the access point. You can
almost always use this wired connection to run the access point configuration
software. When you’re setting up security, we recommend making a wired connection
and doing all your access point configuration in this manner. That way,
you can avoid accidentally blocking yourself from the access point when your
settings begin to take effect.