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Rev. 1 - YML709 www.netcomm.com.au
NB1300Plus4 Wireless ADSL Modem Page 43
Wireless
Effective Range
When planning your wireless network it is best to position your Access Points and Client
Adapters away from the perimeter of your property where possible. Obviously the first goal is
to ensure reception to all areas but remember that the more your wireless emissions leak outside
the property the more likely unauthorised access can be obtained without entering the property.
SSID
The SSID is in a way a simplified security, although it may be easily found by a site survey but
whoever finds it may not know who it belongs to. Best practice is to keep it secret where
possible and ensure it does not describe You, Your Wireless Product, Your Company, Your
location or the services available.
Broadcast Beacon Disabling
Some Access Points allow you to disable the Broadcast Beacon to make the Wireless Network
harder to find. However this does hide the network more from the ‘casual browser’ it is not a
way of protecting your data as it travels in the air or a way of preventing unauthorised access.
MAC Address Filtering
In most Access Points it is possible to only allow Wireless Clients with known MAC addresses
to associate with the Access Point. Your Access Point will maintain an “Authorised MAC
Address table” where you must enter the MAC address of each Wireless Client Adapter you
want to allow to access the AP.
MAC address filtering does not prevent unauthorised interception of your data as it travels
through the air. MAC addresses can also be intercepted and cloned (or spoofed) so that an
unauthorised Wireless Client Adapter could be made to pretend to be an authorised Client
Adapter and gain access to the network. MAC filtering has the advantage of not adding any
overheads to the packet and therefore maintains maximum throughput.
Encryption
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is available in 64 bit and 128 bit standards and is configured
using a key of Hexadecimal characters to encrypt your data before it is transmitted. This
maintains the integrity and privacy of your data, however your WEP key can be determined if
enough data is ‘sniffed’ as it passes between Access Point and Client adapters. Because the WEP
key is common to every Client adapter on the network it is also necessary to change the keys in
every client adapter in order to recover from a stolen key situation.
WiFi Protected Access (WPA) builds upon the WEP method but has two alternate methods
these are;
■ WPA – PSK
■ WPA – RADIUS