Steve Gibson is one the smartest internet Security experts on the web. You can listen to his podcast over at www.twit.tv called Security Now. A weekly show with host Leo Laporte about Security Vulnerabilities, applications and fine tuning. Some of the early episodes they discussed Wireless routers and securing them with various options, with one of the strongest being WPA-PSK.
The vast majority of people with wireless networks at home, go out, buy a wireless router, bring it home, plug it in and go “WOW!, I’M WIRELESS”. They then leave it wide open for other users to steal their internet connection for doing whatever they want. The vast majority also don’t realize that your router has an administrative menu that can be hacked and modified for other’s use. Of course, that can be reset, but that is beside the point. The point is, if your network is unsecure, your network can be hacked and a smart hacker can even possibly access network storage and/or computers. This is especially a problem in large apartment complexes where dozens of wireless networks are.
That is why you MUST secure your network. Early versions of wireless routers, cards and laptops only supported WEP encryption. A solid, but very vunerable security standard. If that’s your only option, go with it, just realize that there free applications out there that CAN get around it. WPA-PSK is a different animal all together.
WPA-PSK is up to a 64 bit Encryption standard that is supported by many modern laptops and supports just about any character imaginable. You can type this in yourself, or you can take advantage of excellent resource brought to you by who else, Steve Gibson. Here it is:
And here is an excerpt from that page:
Generating long, high-quality random passwords is
not simple. So here is some totally random raw
material, generated just for YOU, to start with.Every time this page is displayed, our server generates a unique set of custom, high quality, cryptographic-strength password strings which are safe for you to use:
On that page, you’ll find three different sets of passwords types. I usually use the ASCII version, because it looks unhackable.
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