unencrypted wireless?

Hi,
I have a broadband connection, a wireless broadband router/ PCMCIA card in
my laptop.
I have the Mac address filters set to stop unauthorised access to my
connection but am now considering the security of network traffic.
I tried to use WEP, to no avail, which i put down to different vendors, and
incompatabilities between them.
I am happy that my traffic is insecure, since theres nothing of concern on
it.

I have limited myself to doing any banking or credit card transactions fro
mthe PC hard wired to the router.
Since the banking is HTTPS should this be secure over the wireless too?, as
I understand it its an encrypted path isn't it?
Its probably more likely to get sniffed off the Internet than intercepted in
the air.

Do you think I'm right in this thought?

Thanks for any assistance or advice.

Stevie

theSunbird

theSunbird wrote:

> Since the banking is HTTPS should this be secure over the wireless too?, as
> I understand it its an encrypted path isn't it?

I was thinking the same thing the other day concerning SSH from a GPRS
handheld device. The signal itself is encrypted, right?

F

Frank van Meurs

In <c208oq$2nv$> Frank van Meurs <> writes:

>I was thinking the same thing the other day concerning SSH from a GPRS
>handheld device. The signal itself is encrypted, right?

eyup, but you should make sure you get the intial set of ssh keys during a
secure connection earlier, rather than relying on the wireless one.

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danny burstein

theSunbird <luv-> wrote:
> I tried to use WEP, to no avail, which i put down to different vendors, and
> incompatabilities between them.

That shouldn't be the case as long as you don't enable any vendor-
specific extensions.

> I am happy that my traffic is insecure, since theres nothing of concern on
> it.

There is also the concern of hijacking your bandwidth.... say if someone
tapped into your broadband via insecure WiFi to DL child pornography. Far
fetched? Perhaps.... do you want to take that chance though?

> Since the banking is HTTPS should this be secure over the wireless too?, as
> I understand it its an encrypted path isn't it?

Yes. Just like SSH traffic would be, etc. ~But~ if there is a weakness
exposed by man-in-the-middle attacks your WiFi insecurity might be a
great way to get in.

Even though WEP isn't the best in the world I encourage you to at least
get it operational...

You are right though, lots of things can happen on the other side or
in-between that could be more likely. That doesn't mean you should play
that into your odds calculations though... safer the better, even the
safest of people eventually run into an aggravation.

Cheers, -Ali

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Ali-Reza Anghaie

On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:18:07 -0800, theSunbird wrote:

> Hi,
> I have a broadband connection, a wireless broadband router/ PCMCIA card in
> my laptop.
>
> Do you think I'm right in this thought?
>

The risks are similar to hooking a computer up directly to the Internet.
Make sure your have good host security (latest patches, firewall on and
configured properly, AV if Windows, Windows file and print sharing
disabled, etc etc) and you should do fine.

Tiger_289

I personally wouldn't do it, because if anyone is sniffing your wireless,
they could easily pick up your MAC address and spoof/clone it and access
your network.

I've had numerous problems with WEP, and it's been cracked anyway, so I'm
using WPA with AES. I think it only works on XP with SP1, but it's awesome
and easy to setup.

--
Anthony Brant


"theSunbird" <luv-> wrote in message
news:b_L0c.13884$...
> Hi,
> I have a broadband connection, a wireless broadband router/ PCMCIA card in
> my laptop.
> I have the Mac address filters set to stop unauthorised access to my
> connection but am now considering the security of network traffic.
> I tried to use WEP, to no avail, which i put down to different vendors,
and
> incompatabilities between them.
> I am happy that my traffic is insecure, since theres nothing of concern on
> it.
>
> I have limited myself to doing any banking or credit card transactions fro
> mthe PC hard wired to the router.
> Since the banking is HTTPS should this be secure over the wireless too?,
as
> I understand it its an encrypted path isn't it?
> Its probably more likely to get sniffed off the Internet than intercepted
in
> the air.
>
> Do you think I'm right in this thought?
>
> Thanks for any assistance or advice.
>
> Stevie
>
>
>
>

Anthony Brant

"theSunbird" <luv-> wrote in message
news:b_L0c.13884$
> Hi,
> I have a broadband connection, a wireless broadband router/ PCMCIA
> card in my laptop.
> I have the Mac address filters set to stop unauthorised access to my
> connection but am now considering the security of network traffic.
> I tried to use WEP, to no avail, which i put down to different
> vendors, and incompatabilities between them.
> I am happy that my traffic is insecure, since theres nothing of
> concern on it.
>
> I have limited myself to doing any banking or credit card
> transactions fro mthe PC hard wired to the router.
> Since the banking is HTTPS should this be secure over the wireless
> too?, as I understand it its an encrypted path isn't it?
> Its probably more likely to get sniffed off the Internet than
> intercepted in the air.
>
> Do you think I'm right in this thought?
>
> Thanks for any assistance or advice.
>
> Stevie

Are you able to restrict the ports accessible to wireless users?

If so, only allow port 1723 into your network then require wireless
users to logon via VPN.

Problem solved, you have plenty of encryption, you have controlled
access to the network from wireless.


--

BullBar

BullBar