Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Great analogies for wireless security

From a Lifehacker.com article
  • WEP is like a home bathroom lock, the one you can open just using a bent paperclip. Everyone knows how to unlock it, but when it's locked everyone who walks by understands they should stay out.
  • WPA is like a standard door lock; it's a lot more secure, but it is still possible to get by for someone with the right tools, knowledge, and circumstances.
  • WPA2 is like a bank safe. It may be possible to defeat, depending on how it's been set up, but it's not realistically possible for anybody to actually do so... yet.
  • Not broadcasting your SSID is like taking the numbers off of your house - The house is still there and everyone can see it, it's just a bit harder to find for people that don't know what they are looking for already.
  • Filtering by MAC address is like having a guard at the door that checks everyone's name against a list to see if they can enter. The only problem is, he doesn't ask for ID or remember what people look like, so anybody can and can listen in to see what names are allowed and then claim to be anybody else.

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