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Subject Author Date
Wireless security John Hyde 10-10-2005
---> Re: Wireless security Juergen Nievele...10-10-2005
Posted by Lassi Hippeläinen on October 12, 2005, 12:47 pm
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Hairy One Kenobi wrote:
>... I would hope that we agree that "some" is
> better than "none". Particularly if we all understand the limitations of
> "some".

There is the legal argument. If you have WEP off, you may be treated as a
collaborator in a crime that was launched via your network by an unknown
war driver. If you have WEP on, you may get off the hook.

-- Lassi



Posted by ROBERT S AMP BA Drake on October 23, 2005, 2:38 pm
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Agree Hairy One,

The earlier anology about the bear and the tennis shoes is a good one. When
"war driving" for a network, the wide open ones will be attacked. If yours
is at least WEP, hidden, and protected with a strong password, the "bear"
will fo after the other networks.

Around where I live, I can go through "condo canyon" and see 20-30 wide open
wireless networks. WEP is better than nothing.

>>
>> >> Either go for real security, or no security - if you have no
>> >> encryption enabled, you'll at least always remember that there's a
>> >> good reason to be carefull.
>> >
>> > Interesting argument.
>> >
>> > A car ignition lock can be forced.. so do you park your car with the
>> > doors open and the key in the ignition? ;o)
>>
>> No, I keep the Garage door locked ;-)
>>
>> And yes, as the car windows are transparent and non-armoured, I don't
>> leave valuables lying openly in the car.
>
> So, in other words, some security (even fairly inadequate) is batter than
> a
> choice of none at all?
>
> I *do* follow your argument, but I would hope that we agree that "some" is
> better than "none". Particularly if we all understand the limitations of
> "some".
>
> "Holy Dictionary, Batman":
>
> Uncrackable, adj.
> Something that hasn't been cracked just yet. Give it a year or two.
>
> :o)
>
> H1K
>
>




Posted by Todd H. on October 10, 2005, 9:19 pm
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> Greetings,
>
> I am in the process of setting up wireless access in our small
> office. The wireless access point hardware I have seen is all equipped
> to do up to 128 bit WEP encryption and MAC filtering. A couple of
> questions:
>
> 1. I have read that WEP is broken. Is it really? Do I want to use
> something else? One of the laptops that will be connecting is a few
> years old and it's built in wireless supports WEP 128 but not other
> encryption as far as I can tell.

WPA with radius authentication is cryptographically quite superior.

WEP is crackable very quickly provided enough initialization vectors
and traffic have been gathered. Injection techniques can be leveraged
to generate the required traffic in a compressed timeframe. Freely
available tools like kismet are available with these tools built in.
If your access point uses weak/predicatable initialization vectors,
it's cracable that more quickly.

> 2. MAC filtering seems to me to be a great idea. Adds a layer of
> security. If WEP is enabled, is the MAC address of the laptop also
> encrypted? Does it matter?

The mac is in the clear, IIRC. Passive sniffers like kismet can
detect them, and those mac's can be used in spoofing.

> 3. Thinking out loud now. If my laptop is busy looking for wireless
> access points, and transmitting it's MAC address in the clear. Assume
> an attacker learns my MAC address. Then I get to my office and log on
> to the Wireless Access Point. It requires that I send the MAC
> encrypted. Does the attacker have a crib that will them to pry open
> WEP 128? If so, am I better off with just WEP and not MAC
> filtering?

WEP 128 is better than mac filtering alone. wep 128 + mac filtering
will prevent the casual hack, but is trivially crackable for someone
in sniffing range. For home use, probably it's acceptable risk
depending on how dense your surroundings. For a business environment,
a VPN connection with strong encryption is preferable.

WPA + radius authentication is the best of breed right now. Firmware
upgrades may get you there for free. WPA + pre-shared key
authentication has a weakness in it that makes a brute force attack
nearly feasible, though I haven't been following that issue closely.

All production wireless right now should be considered something that
can be DOS'd so relying on it for a connection that must be there
continuously is dicey. Wired is preferable if possible.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/


Posted by Unruh on October 11, 2005, 4:46 am
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>Greetings,

>I am in the process of setting up wireless access in our small office.
>The wireless access point hardware I have seen is all equipped to do up
>to 128 bit WEP encryption and MAC filtering. A couple of questions:

>1. I have read that WEP is broken. Is it really? Do I want to use
>something else? One of the laptops that will be connecting is a few
>years old and it's built in wireless supports WEP 128 but not other
>encryption as far as I can tell.

WEP can be cracked relatively easily. If someone sits outside your offices
and gets something line 1000000 bytes of encrypted traffice, they can
apparently figure out what the key is, and then have complete and free
access to your network. Is this an acceptable risk for your business?
WPA is stronger, if your router and your systems support it.

Your one laptop might be OK, as long as the WEP key is changed regularly
and that laptop is not used very much.


>2. MAC filtering seems to me to be a great idea. Adds a layer of
>security. If WEP is enabled, is the MAC address of the laptop also
>encrypted? Does it matter?

>3. Thinking out loud now. If my laptop is busy looking for wireless
>access points, and transmitting it's MAC address in the clear. Assume an
>attacker learns my MAC address. Then I get to my office and log on to
>the Wireless Access Point. It requires that I send the MAC encrypted.
>Does the attacker have a crib that will them to pry open WEP 128? If
>so, am I better off with just WEP and not MAC filtering?



>John


Posted by z0nk on October 13, 2005, 5:33 pm
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John Hyde napisa³(a):
> Greetings,
>
> I am in the process of setting up wireless access in our small office.
> The wireless access point hardware I have seen is all equipped to do up
> to 128 bit WEP encryption and MAC filtering. A couple of questions:
>
> 1. I have read that WEP is broken. Is it really? Do I want to use
> something else? One of the laptops that will be connecting is a few
> years old and it's built in wireless supports WEP 128 but not other
> encryption as far as I can tell.
>
> 2. MAC filtering seems to me to be a great idea. Adds a layer of
> security. If WEP is enabled, is the MAC address of the laptop also
> encrypted? Does it matter?
>
> 3. Thinking out loud now. If my laptop is busy looking for wireless
> access points, and transmitting it's MAC address in the clear. Assume an
> attacker learns my MAC address. Then I get to my office and log on to
> the Wireless Access Point. It requires that I send the MAC encrypted.
> Does the attacker have a crib that will them to pry open WEP 128? If
> so, am I better off with just WEP and not MAC filtering?
>
Your network is not save. Perhaps you need 30min-3hour to acces to your
wirles network. The best idea is use Radius. I don't know any person
who's broke radius security. sorry for my terrible english. In poland
wardriving is popular too :)


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