WiFi connectivity is now taken for granted. At a time when everyone has a mobile phone, tablet or laptop and wireless networks are all around us, it is very convenient to use this convenience. But this is where the problem arises. You never know what kind of person is standing on the street next to your house and what they want to do with the phone in their hand.Are you sure that only you and your loved ones really have access to your home network?
The first WiFi security, generally referred to as WEP, has been with us for more than 20 years, and while it provided adequate protection since 1997, it showed weaknesses almost immediately after the turn of the millennium. Since 2001, it has been demonstrated by several methods that WEP can be cracked in minutes, even from a distance of several hundred meters from a WiFi device. WEP can thus be safely described as a long outdated encryption that should not be used today. Its would-be successors such as WEPplus, WEP2 or WPA belong in the same bag as WEP. There’s no denying that there have been some improvements, but as a result, it just takes a little more time for an attacker to crack your WiFi.
WPA2 security has been helping us protect our wireless networks quite successfully for 14 years, and the Wi-Fi Alliance in June of this year launched preparations for WPA3, a more advanced security that should increase wireless network protection and, most importantly, prevent dictionary attacks, which are a weakness of the most widely used WPA2.A dictionary attack involves an attacker trying to obtain a password using a pre-made list of likely passwords. Thus, if you are using an online password generator, you are most likely also unknowingly contributing to similar dictionaries.
If you are unsure about your home wireless network setup, whether it’s the encryption you choose, the length or complexity of your password, feel free to contact us – we’d be happy to help.