Re: home wireless router good practices for security

["Paul Kurczaba" <paul () myipis com>]

To help keep your neighbors (or wardrivers) from getting a good signal, you
should place your access point in the center of your house, preferably on
the first floor.

-Paul Kurczaba
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve" <securityfocus () delahunty com>
To: <security-basics () securityfocus com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 1:32 PM
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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