What is more secure for WIFI? WPA / WEP / Mac filtering

medpal

medpal

Resident Medic
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Now i have got a net connction at home. :clap:

i access it through Linksys WAG200G router cum gateway and access net on lappy through wifi.

as we are still in country where capped bandwidth connection are the norm how can i prevent my bandwidth to be stolen.

i have heard about WPA / WEP encryptions.

My supplier who came to install the gateway advised me to put Mac filtering on instead of encryption.

So that only preregistered devices with their Mac address on gateway list will be allowed to access the gateway.

Is this the secure method?

i tried to access the net with wifi on other device and was not successfull to go through.

But still experts opinions are always better.
TIA.
 
Your supplier gave you a pretty good advice. Two reasons

1) WEP / WPA could be broked . It's not as easy as we think, but not impossible also. On other hand MAC security is unbreachable. However, if somebody get to know your MAC address, he can spoof his network card to use it and gain access to your WiFi network.

But for that he need to know your MAC address ( so it's pretty impossible )

2) WEP / WPA can cause some connectivity issues ( my personal experience), not much but once in a while you may find that your Laptop is unable to register with Access point and you may have to reboot it. I personally use MAC security and finds it best.
 
thanks funky and zanderzone for the info.

@funky : i will look in interface for the wpa-psk option and add it.

for the time being i am satisfied that i am not doing anything wrong.
 
There are 2 types of wpa personal encryption... tkip and aes

WPA Personal
TKIP stands for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, which utilizes a stronger encryption method than WEP, and incorporates Message Integrity Code (MIC) to provide protection against packet tampering. AES stands for Advanced Encryption System, which utilizes a symmetric 128-Bit block data encryption and MIC. You should choose AES if your wireless clients supports it.
Click to expand...

Most newer routers also support wpa2 which offers additional security...

WPA2 uses 802.11i to provide additional security beyond what is provided in WPA. AES is required under WPA2, and you may need additional updates to your OS and/or wireless drivers for WPA2 support.
Click to expand...

I would say that mac is most definitely as safe as it gets, but I tried it out of curiosity and had some problems with stability.
Honestly though if you have a hacker that is determined to breach a wpa2-psk wireless security... then you are already in trouble.
It is unlikely that wpa2-psk is not secure enough for you... at around 128-Bit block data encryption .. you are likely to be as secure as you will ever need to be...
Unless you are forming some underground plot to overthrow the govt... or something :p
 
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