Wireless Acronym Soup

Posted by: dropped packet [ITS Security] under Informative

Have you ever wondered what all those acronyms are when dealing with your wireless network. It is good to know what these are, to make sure that you protect your data and your rights. In today’s write up I hope to demystify some of this geek speak.

First some of the basic terms:

• SSID - Service Set Identifier – this is the name of your wireless network
• WPA - Wi-Fi Protected Access
• WPA2 - Wi-Fi Protected Access Version 2
• PSK - Pre-Shared Key
• AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
• DES - Data Encryption Standard
• WEP - Wired Equivalent Privacy
• TKIP - Temporal Key Integrity Protocol
• Wi-Fi - Wireless Fidelity
• WAN - Wide Area Network - this is the side you plug your DSL modem into.
• WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network – this is your Wireless network.
• LAN - Local Area Network – this is your Local network.

Wow!  What a list. First things first, why should you secure your wireless?  That’s simple, the same reason you lock your house or car. The big issue is liability; If your neighbor is sharing movie files or doing other illegal actives on your connection you could get a visit from some government agencies that have three letter acronyms.  Another good reason for security is to prevent theft of your data and identity.

Now I can’t tell you how to setup your exact brand of wireless router but I can help you understand the common functions that they serve. First you should pick a SSID or name for your network. Do not leave the default and don’t use anything that would identify the network as belonging to you. A bad example would be “smith-net” for the Smith family; a better choice would be “gold-net” or “my-wireless”. You will want to make sure that your neighbors are not using the same SSID to ensure that you don’t “hop” onto their wireless network. That said, once you name your network you will want to ”mask” or hide your SSID. This just makes it so you do not broadcast the name of your network to anyone with wireless access in your neighborhood. The idea behind this is ‘out of sight, out of mind’; and is one more step in keeping the honest, honest.

So now you have your network named and have it hidden, so what’s next? Now you must choose an encryption scheme to “encode” your traffic, no it’s not that daunting of a task. For a home network you will want WPA2-PSK if your operating system(s) and router support it, your second choice is WPA-PSK; but never use WEP.  Using WEP is like locking your house and nailing the key to front door with a sign saying “house key”. WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK use a pre-shared key that you choose, like a password that you enter in to the wireless router and your computer. If these do not match you can’t get on the wireless network. This method does have some weaknesses as well but the next step would involve installing servers and spending lots of money. The idea with WPA would be like locking your house, putting the key in a safe and burying the safe in the backyard.  This is not how you would set up a business, but that is outside of the scope of this article

I hope I was able to clear some of the fog surrounding wireless security. This method is not 100 percent fool proof, but it is better than nothing.  The idea behind security is to make your systems harder to get into than the next guys.  Keep in mind that no security system is perfect; if a hacker wants in bad enough they will get in.  So make it not worth their while.

References:  For more detail on any of the above click here.

Dropped Packet