Wireless Home Networking - Index of

In This Chapter
Chapter 9
Securing Your Wireless
Home Network
� Worrying about wireless home network security
� Understanding WEP
� Saying hooray for WPA
� Getting security on your network
� Securing your network the easy way with Wi-Fi Protected Setup
� Going for bulletproof security
If you read the news — well, at least if you read the same networking news
sources that we do — you’ve probably seen and heard a thing or two (or a
hundred) about wireless local area network (LAN) security. In fact, you really
don’t need to read specialized industry news to hear about this topic. Many
major newspapers and media outlets — The New York Times, the San Jose
Mercury News, and USA Today, among others — have run feature articles documenting
the insecurity of wireless LANs. Most of these stories have focused
on wardrivers, folks who park in the lots in front of office buildings, pull out
their laptops, and easily get onto corporate networks.
In this chapter, we talk a bit about these security threats and how they may
affect you and your wireless home network. We also (helpful types that we
are) give you some advice on how you can make your wireless home network
more secure. We talk about a system called Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA),
which can make your network secure to most attacks, and also an older system
called Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), which doesn’t do such a good job but
may be the best you can do in many cases.
The advice we give in this chapter applies to any 802.11 wireless network,
whether it uses a, b, g, or n, because the steps you take to batten down the
hatches on your network are virtually identical, regardless of which version
of 802.11 you choose. (If you missed our discussion on 802.11 basics, jump
over to Chapter 2.)