Is positive MAC-filter enough?

[vestlink]

Just a thought.

Since I along others have problem with wep using wireless assistant one I couldn't help but think.

What if you define a positive list of MACS and disable wep. How safe is that security-wise?

Any thoughs on that?

Nicolai

[sky]

Re: Is positive MAC-filter enough?

Hi,

In fact it's good in a way because it's easier and safe, people can't connect to your wifi to use it...
The bad side of it is that if hackers want to read datas passing on your wireless network, he can do it really easily... Wep is not protecting long time by the way
Also some hackers can "burn" their mac address to mime yours and then connect freely to your network...

Nevertheless, if you don't really have network close to you and not making transfer a lot of secured datas and you're not paranoid you can keep it with mac filtering and no wep... I'm living close to old people, have no wifi network around me, so I'm using this way to connect...

Hope it helped

[baddog]

Re: Is positive MAC-filter enough?

MAC addresses (and other info like IP addy, etc) are transmitted in the clear even if you have WEP (or WPA) encryption enabled. They can easily be captured using a packet sniffer. Filters will stop "accidental" connections from neighbors etc who don't even realize that they connected to your access point instead of their own or from the folks that know the difference but like to "borrow" your connection to do their own surfing. Anyone that knows how to use a packet sniffer can capture your MAC in seconds and then use that to bypass your filter. MAC filters are useful as a network management tool, but as a security measure, they will stop only the most inexperienced of attackers. (Don't try this at home folks, I am an untrained amature)

[vestlink]

Re: Is positive MAC-filter enough?

Thanks alot for your answers.

I have noticed severral other wireless networks in my vicinity and will propably not use method.

What I want to then is for for my wep or wpa to work.

But I cant figure out how to configure my D-Link DWL-g510 (rev c) to connect to my D-Link 624+ router.

So for the time being i'm so unfortunate to use M$ when connecting to the net.

Nicolai