[rescue] speaking of WEP

Gary gary at linuxforce.org
Wed Sep 6 16:02:29 CDT 2006


On Wed, 6 Sep 2006, Bill Bradford wrote:

> Surely I'm not the only one who only runs 64-bit WEP at home?
>
> (so I can remember the passphrase)
>
> If anybody's dedicated enough to break the key and sniff the
> traffic, all they're going to see is SSH anyway....

I prefer WPA2.  WEP is so trivial to break with the proper tools (kismet, 
etc) that is poses zero challenge to anyone who can load up the proper app 
and click a few buttons.

WPA2 isn't perfect, but with the proper passphrase it's so frustrating to 
attack that one typically moves on to an easier target.

There are other threats than just watching what you're doing on your 
network.  It is quite common for people to roam around areas looking for 
vulnerable wireless networks (especially businesses).  Once on the 
network, they probe around for an SMTP relay and start pumping it full of 
SPAM.

Case in point:

http://shorterlink.org/1052

Honestly, for the typical home user - WEP is probably fine.  Businesses on 
the other hand need to be a bit more careful.

~G~



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