NETGEAR Wireless-N Access Point WN802T v2 Reference Manual
3-2 Wireless Security Settings
v1.0, September 2008
• Use WPA or WPA-PSK. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) data encryption provides data
security. The very strong authentication along with dynamic per frame rekeying of WPA make
it virtually impossible to compromise. Because this is a new standard, wireless device driver
and software availability may be limited.
Security options are available under Configuration > Security > Security Settings (see
Figure 3-1). An overview of the information that is required to set up security options
follows—including a description of the Network Authentication choices that are available:
• Wireless Network Name or Service Set Identifier (SSID). This is the name of your wireless
network. It is used to identify the particular 802.11 wireless LAN to which a user wants to
attach. A client device will receive broadcast messages from all access points within range
advertising their SSIDs, and can choose one to connect to based on pre-configuration, or by
displaying a list of SSIDs in range and asking the user to select one.It is set to the default name
of NETGEAR (see “Configuring Basic Wireless Settings” in Chapter 2). It is normal for
multiple access points to share the same SSID if they provide access to the same network.
• Broadcast Wireless Network Name (SSID). If you disable broadcast of the SSID, only
devices that have the correct SSID can connect. This nullifies the wireless network
“discovery” feature of some products such as Vista and Windows XP, but the data is still fully
exposed to a determined snoop using specialized test equipment like wireless sniffers. The
default is enabled.
• Security Settings. Configure the following settings:
Figure 3-1 Basic security settings