Wireless Security - What are the best settings
 

I have just got myself a nice new DG834Gv2 and cant figure out the best way to secure my network, I know that SSID broadcasting should be off but what about encryption? should I use WEP?? 64 or 128?? does any of these settings effect speed??? help.......

Jake.

The higher the encryption level, the better so use WEP 128 bit. I don't think it has any effect on performance - I've never noticed if it does.

SSID should not be broadcast - and change it to anything other than the default setting (it can be anything you want).

WEP should be run. Yes, it can be broken, but you need to have a)the knowledge b)the equipment and c)the desire to do so. To break WEP still requires you to capture many Gbits of data, so for home use, WEP is OK. I would use 128bit if you can. You shouldn't notice much difference in speed.

Connecting PCs can be limited by registering the MAC addresses of each PC. Also turn off any DHCP server settings and statically IP address your PCs.

Do this and you'll be carrying out more security than a lot of commercial firms I know! I sat in a cafe close to the Barbican a couple of days ago on my way to a client meeting. Just out of interest, I fired up my laptop and did a quick sweep for WiFi connections. I found about a dozen - half of these were open with no WEP, running the default SSID.....

Chris

Cheers guys will take your advice, SSID off - Wep 128 on - trusted MAC addresses only.

If I turn off dhcp and setup a static ip for my pc what about my xbox? how do I assign that a static ip??

Just had a look at the Static ip options in the router, is it just a case of disabling DHCP and reserving the ip assigned to the pc & xbox? do I need to make any changes to the pc or xbox itself?

If you use access control and WPA encryption you don't need to worry about SSID or DHCP

:D

So many different combos!!! but this does sound the easiest.

WEP can be hacked, another good thing to do is only let machines of a specific MAC address connect to the network, that way they would have to spoof that to then crack the WEP, which is way too much hassle.