Best non WPA2 security?

[taylorwilsdon]

My mom couldn't connect one of her computers to her new router, so she called me. After trying everything, I realized - the laptop was so old that it didn't support WPA2 security. Switching to WPA worked fine.

However, thats not secure enough by anyones count. People in her neighborhood are trying to jack wireless constantly. She has 5 computers and adds and removes them alot, so Mac address filtering is (tentatively) out of the question. Right now its set up to broadcast the session (incase other people want to use it and are allowed to) and WPA password protected.

The password is complex, but... yeah, its WPA. Anyone can crack it.

I'm looking for suggestions. She would have to be able to do them with me talking her through it over the phone, so rule physical access out.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Its the linksys "standard" router, fyi. The wrt54g.

 

[XOR != OR]

Since when can anybody crack wpa? I was under the impression that wpa was good, wpa2 is better.

Now WEP sucks, true. So does mac filtering. More trouble than it's worth.

 

[/dev/null]

IMHO, it's best not to depend on a wireless router for security.

You could leave an open wap, hook the wap into a firewall and ONLY permit ipsec/vpn into your lan. Anyone who tries any thing else has a dead connection.

 

[darkeen]

IIRC WPA is crackable (as I assume WPA 2 is). Only issue is time. On that note WPA2 is the best you can get and WPA would be number 2. Maybe setup a radius server to go with it?

 

[zeroARMY]

Since when can anybody crack wpa? I was under the impression that wpa was good, wpa2 is better.

Now WEP sucks, true. So does mac filtering. More trouble than it's worth.

I was under the impression MAC filtering was one of the better options. Why not?

 

[tacticus]

I was under the impression MAC filtering was one of the better options. Why not?

because once i know your MAC address i can just make my card pretend to be you

 

[XOR != OR]

because once i know your MAC address i can just make my card pretend to be you

And MAC's are sent in the clear, so it only takes a moment of sniffing to find it.

At least, that's what I've read.

 

[Dzero]

So far, WPA (PSK) is brute force only. An 8 character password would take 147 years to to find all possible combinations.

Using a randomized 63 character hex should put you up to "when the Sun goes Supernova"

Hope that's not a toll call.

 

[RagingSamster]

WPA is fine, I normally use a short 5-10 word sentence as the passphrase so it will be easily recalled.