How to improve WLAN security?

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Bart

Bart

Mister Mediocre
Jan 10, 2002
4,060
113
Germany
lo,

installed a new WLAN yesterday and today, but now i wonder if you guys know reliable ways to get a WLAN secure.

I configured the WLAN with the following settings:
- WPA2 with AES - CCMP.
- Mac filter, so only a WLAN-card with my MAC-adress is allowed to join the network.
- i also veiled the SSID, so someone who wanna join the network has to know the SSID name coz the SSID name aint showed.
- also i am using a networkkey with numbers, letters and special characters in it.
- Newest Router-Firmware and Windowsupdates are installed ofc.

Prolly giving static IPs (= no DHCP) could be useful aswell, but didn't do it yet.
Instead i limited the amount of possible DHCP-clients to 2.

So, is there any other advice you could give for increasing security?

thanks in advance. :wave:
 
mac filter and ssid broadcast disabled won't stop someone who knows what he's doing, but make sure u use lower and upper case letter in pass.

u could use a RADIUS server with certificats ( aka EAP-TLS)
make VPN connection from ur PC to ur Wrouter if it support it.
 
Get this woman as your admin:
1337_part_1.png


http://ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html
 
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After i read more about the whole Wifi stuff today, i realised that this is complex but also a very interesting topic.

It's true that MAC-filtering or hidden SSIDs don't do much against real hackers.
Well, VPN & Radius are abit too overpowered for me, plus adding new devices would need (too) much configuration on the client. ;)

According to many network pros even WPA+TKIP is labeled as secure in most cases.
A combination of WPA2+AES is seen as very very secure and is even good enough for sensible data.

The only real weakness of WPA2 could b the password.
So they give the advice to use one with atleast 20 characters (random characters, no real words!), to make it impossible to crack it with reasonable effort.

So i'll stick with WPA2.
Alrdy change the password to 23 chars, changed default router IP and deactived DHCP.

That should do the trick.

TBH, if someone wants to get in, they will..
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aye, WLAN can never be completly save.
It's just possible to make cracking so hard, that it's not worth it or would take too long.

WPA2 with 63 character pwd is seen as almost impossible to crack. ;)
 
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Bart said:
WPA2 with 63 character pwd is seen as almost impossible to crack. ;)
Click to expand...

To remember as well. :lol:

Current settings should keep you secured from script kiddies who can only launch "some" tools and wait to do the job for them.
 
Changing router IP, and disabling DHCP only makes it harder on yourself to manage.. If someone actually does manage to break WPA2 they just have to sniff a single packet between your PC and the router to find the router IP.. DHCP has nothing to say security wise, it only helps to configure network devices.
 
To remember as well.
Click to expand...
;)

thankfully there's no need to remember it. :love: wifi profiles
yeye, i know that this creates other security probs, but i can live with them ;)

doh said:
Changing router IP, and disabling DHCP only makes it harder on yourself to manage.. If someone actually does manage to break WPA2 they just have to sniff a single packet between your PC and the router to find the router IP.. DHCP has nothing to say security wise, it only helps to configure network devices.
Click to expand...
When you've DHCP activated every physical routerport is a hole - security wise ofc.
Someone could easily use them to surf with ur accountdata. Knowing some buddys, that's summin i don't want. ;)
And even if they have no wish to surf, they could see the ip adress range, making hacking the router administration abit easier.

Same is with the defaul router ip.
Almost every router has the default IP 192.168.1.1, so changing it to an unusual IP is another (very) small step to confuse possible attackers.

And if someone has enough skill (or tools) to hack WPA2 with 23 (now 30 ;)) characters, there's not much i can do anyway. Esp not with deactivating DHCP or MAC-filterung.
So the step i posted above are more to confuse bad, average attackers.

Funny sidenote:
One of my neighbours has his WIFI running 24/7, His full name is the SSID and he uses only WEP :lol:
 
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I didn't know you feared people hooking a cable up to your router. In that case you're just making security through obscurity again though.
 
Yeah or you could all stop being so paranoid :lol:

Id be amazed, astounded even, if anyone even bothered a serious attempt on your network, unless ur packing some interesting data on ur home pcs and ppl found out? :P
 
Bart said:
Funny sidenote:
One of my neighbours has his WIFI running 24/7, His full name is the SSID and he uses only WEP :lol:
Click to expand...

Yeah and i bet no one has bothered to "hack" his network, but its obv much easier if someone did :P

I mean, if someone wants to get into your network, and they are good, im sure they would get in.

Anyway, if your just doing it to play around/learn and it gives you peace of mind, then fair enuf :)

Edit, nm :P
 
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Well Gazzy i'm pretty sure that these days there are far more script kiddies who just playing with different stuff just to show off and break things then real hackers. Making your wlan a bit more secured against them makes sense because they are simply too noob to do something without googled tools.

Real hacker will rather use your stuff to build a botnet or something liek that instead of just messing around imho.
 
bandwith is the key ... with some linux distro u can merge couple of hacked wifi network to get 50+ MB
hackers can also use ur network as a hop to do other stuff elswhere while bein "cloaked"(?)

it takes less than 1 minute to crack a WEP key lol
 
call me howard hughes :nod:

Seriously, i'm aware that the chances for attacks are low, but unfortunally you can never know whether bored IT guys are parking near your block- just on coincidence - while trying to fuck up WLANs.
Hell, they don't even have to know you personally.
After seeing how easy you can find cracking tools, and youtube cracking vids, i guess that the amount of tool wankers will increase in near future.

I'm convinced that almost everyone has important data on the computer (like bank, health or job data), that shouldnt be shared with IT scumbags.
So my opinion is that it's better to be too cautious than beeing too careless, even when that sounds paranoid to you. :P

I didn't know you feared people hooking a cable up to your router.
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Well, sins of youth.
Did IT pranks on buddies that costed them some money and since that time they looking for revenge.
No need to make that too easy for them :P

but tbh they were worth all the anger now :lol:
 
tbh, if you're that sorta paranoid, you should look more into limiting the signal to your own home. Isolating walls is probably not an option, but some routers have an option, or can be hacked to have an option of the signal transmit power. Lower it as much as possible without getting dropouts, to limit the signal to your own perimeter.

Saves you from having to wear your tinfoil hat as much as well.
 
Op1uM said:
it takes less than 1 minute to crack a WEP key lol
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HOW!? I need to haxx0r some internetzzzz so I can d0wnload because the network I'm on übersecure and doesn't allow torrent or p2p traffix! :( :( :( :( :( :(
 
Long post about wireless hacking and security. Hopefully it will be of use for those that are interested. The "how" part is not a howto, but be limited to some facts. I will not give out the names and use of the tools, you are on your own for that.

Wireless hacking

Why?
Why would you want to secure wireless? Some already said "nobody will hack me, why would they?", "I'm not an interesting target", etc.
Here are some possibilities when your wireless is hacked:

- Your AP/internet could be abused for illegal things: sending spam, distributing child porn, sending email threats, etc etc.
- Usernames & passwords could be stolen and then used/abused. (sites, email, ftp, etc) This attack is completely passive and thus you would never find out, until it's too late.
- Internet banking could go through an attacker instead of directly to the bank, giving them full access.
- Stealing bandwidth for up/downloads
- Pranks, like flipping all the images up-side down with surfing

In all those case your IP will show up, making you the suspect. While law enforcement _might_ find out you are indeed innocent, the hassle is hardly worth it, now is it? Especially when all your equipment is seized for an indefinite period.

Currently I'm investigating and writing a paper about this very issue.. if it's possible to find out if an AP is abused by someone else or not. This paper is partially for school and partially for the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI).

I hope the "why" part is clear now.

How?
There are plenty of tools around, some tools are all round while others are specialized to attack specific kinds of measures/problems.
Mac filter can be easily bypassed by spoofing after sniffing.
Hidden SSID can easily be detected by sniffing.
Changing the ip range and/or switching DHCP off can easily be checked by sniffing.

Those 3 above options are not only useless, they make your own management a lot harder. If a friend comes over with a laptop or you buy a new laptop you need to do a bit of work to get internet on the new devices. Overall it's a hassle for you, not the (skilled) attacker.

WEP can be cracked through multiple ways.. time ranges from 3 to 15 minutes. If there is no data to capture/analyze then the AP can be forced to broadcast data.
WPA and WPA2 can cracked through dictionary bruteforce and/or rainbow tables. The rainbow tables are extremely fast although require a large amount of HD & Ram.

As sniffing is one of the first steps to do, a lot of the "security through obscurity" options are easily bypassed and shows that it's no security at all. Some tools even discover the "hidden" information automatically, helping out lesser skilled attackers.

Who?
Anyone who has the skill to do the "how" and is either curious or has any of the "why" motives/reasons.

Wireless Security

What?
What are the most secure options? Here is a list, starting with the strongest solution:
No wireless (sadly, this isn't always an option)
WPA2 + Radius (Best wireless security option, pretty much unbreakable with current techniques and hardware)
WPA + Radius
WPA2
WPA
WEP (To be honest, don't bother.. just a buy a new router if this is your only option)

SSID: Pick something fairly random, just make sure it's not in the top 1000 of SSID names. (Stuff like "wireless" or "linksys" is bad)
Passphrase: No matter what, where or how.. but _always_ pick a long and strong password/passphrase. In this case it means more than 20 characters and no dictionary or other common/normal words, not even medical or so. Just make it something (fairly) random using chars, numbers and special chars.
As doh pointed out you could lower the signalstrength so it is confined to your house and not covering half a block.

How?
Almost all of these options are fully dependant of your router, if your router doesn't support it you cant use it.
So make sure you buy proper stuff, although pretty much all wireless routers support WPA2 nowadays.
For Radius you need a server and of course support from the router. Not everyone has a server, so this might not be an option for everyone..



Long story short: Use WPA2 + RADIUS, if thats not an option use WPA2 with a proper passphrase.
 
Lex_Mortis said:
While law enforcement _might_ find out you are indeed innocent, the hassle is hardly worth it, now is it? Especially when all your equipment is seized for an indefinite period.
Click to expand...

Nice post lex, it is an interesting topic imo!

However the above comment you made isnt strictly acurate (well from my experience) and depends on a lot of factors (i can only say this from my exp so far ofc), though its certaintly a possibilty.

I think you raised some good points, i still believe the possibilty of such things happening are low, but thats just me/my opinnion. I have to confess, im considering changing some of my wirless settings after reading all the replies in here :lol:

:thumb:
 
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