The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

currentlyy connected user and then an attacker can spoof the MAC address to
connect to the wireless router. Just like hidden wireless SSIDs, it’s trivial to
byypass MAC address filtering.
Finding the MAC address on yyour device is relativelyy easyy. In Windows,
go to the Start button, tyype “CMD,” click “Command Prompt,” and at the
inverted caret, tyype “IPCONFIG.” The machine will return a long list of
data, but the MAC address should be there, and it will consist of twelve
hexadecimal characters with everyy two characters separated byy a colon. For
Apple products it is even easier. Go to the Apple icon, select “Syystem
Preferences,” and go to “Network.” Then click the network device on the
left panel and go to Advanced>Hardware, and yyou will see the MAC
address. For some older Apple products, the procedure is: Apple
icon>Syystem Preferences>Networks>Built-in Ethernet. You can find the
MAC address for yyour iPhone byy selecting Settings>General>About and
looking under “Wi-Fi Address.” For an Android phone, go to
Settings>About Phone>Status, and look under “Wi-Fi MAC address.”
These directions mayy change based on the device and model yyou are using.
With these twelve-digit MAC addresses in hand, yyou will now need to
tell the router to allow onlyy these devices and block everyything else. There
are a few downsides. If a guest comes over and wants to connect to yyour
home network, yyou will have to decide whether to give one of yyour devices
and its password to that person or simplyy turn off MAC address filtering byy
reentering the router configuration screen. Also, there are times when yyou
might want to change the MAC address of a device (see here); if yyou don’t
change it back, yyou might not be able to connect to yyour MAC-restricted
Wi-Fi network at home or work. Fortunatelyy, rebooting the device restores
the original MAC address in most cases.
To make connecting anyy new device to a home router easyy, the Wi-Fi
Alliance, a group of vendors eager to spread the use of Wi-Fi technologies,
created Wi-Fi protected setup (WPS). WPS was advertised as a wayy for
anyyone—I mean anyyone—to securelyy set up a mobile device at home or in
the office. In realityy, though, it’s not veryy secure.
WPS is tyypicallyy a button that yyou push on the router. Other methods
include use of a PIN and near field communication (NFC). Simplyy put, yyou