Frequently Asked Questions

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The following Frequently Asked Questions, answered by the authors of this book, are designed to both measure your understanding of the concepts presented in this chapter and to assist you with real-life implementation of these concepts. To have your questions about this chapter answered by the author, browse to www.syngress.com/solutions and click on the “Ask the Author” form. You will also gain access to thousands of other FAQs at ITFAQnet.com.

1.	Why should I bother using Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption if it can be cracked?
2.	What are the different transmission keys used for?
3.	How often should I change my WEP key?
4.	Aside from setting a default SSID, disabling SSID broadcast, enabling 128-bit WEP, and filtering by MAC address, are there other security measures I can take?

Answers

1.	Due to the low amount of wireless network traffic that is usually generated on a home wireless network, it would take an attacker an extremely long time to capture enough packets to successfully crack the WEP key of your network. An attacker is unlikely to devote the required time and effort to cracking the WEP key on a home network when there are so many home networks that have no security measures enabled.
2.	With many access points, you can generate four WEP keys at once. You can switch between these keys by configuring the access point to use a different transmission key (1–4). You must then configure your wireless client to use the same WEP key (1–4) as the access point.
3.	This depends on the amount of traffic on your wireless network. The more traffic you generate, the easier it is to crack your WEP key. However, by frequently changing your WEP key, every month at least, you can essentially render the packets an attacker has captured useless. You can change your WEP key as often as you like, even every day if so desired.
4.	Of course there are. Some other easy security measures you can implement are to disable the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server on your router, use a non-default IP address range, do not allow configuration changes to be made from a wireless, and keep your firmware up-to-date. Some of these topics are covered in Chapter 11, “Advanced Wireless Security,” of this book.

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