WiFi Wars!
Now we’re all used to seeing SKY24384 or BTHomeHub3-3483 (or their variants!) when we search for our wireless networks at home, but have you ever had a neighour ramp things up a bit and leave you a message via their network name? It seems that it’s a growing trend for home network admins to leave messages via their SSID (Service Set Identification)
There was a large discussion on the subject on the self-dubbed “Front page of the internet”, Reddit recently that got people talking and sharing their own experiences with neighbours.
An anonymous user said:
“I used to have GetYourOwnInternet. That way if someone was snooping around for some wi-fi to borrow, they would have to look elsewhere. I changed to EatTheChildrenFirst when I moved into a neighbourhood with a lot of kids – I thought it would be a cheeky name.”
However there’s always a serious side to this sort of thing and there was also talk about unsecured wireless networks being used in the Reddit thread and wireless network security should be of utmost importance for everyone running a wireless network in their home. There are 3 main types of security available on the majority of home-user routers and these are WEP, WPA and WPA2, each one providing substantial protection benefits over the other.
Some of these humorous SSIDs mention “Stop stealing my WiFi!” or similar, implying that people are “piggybacking” off of their network. This could be something as simple as them running an unsecured network and the fix could be as easy as enabling one of the above security algorithms, however which is best?
WEP – Wired Equivalent Privacy
WEP really shouldn’t be your choice of security on your wireless network as it is the easiest to “crack”. German security experts have found a way to obtain your wireless password on a WEP secured network within seconds. 3 seconds in fact, is all it took to extract a 104-bit WEP key on an old laptop.
WPA – WiFi Protected Access
WPA is a bit beefier in its security, however if someone was determined to get in, then they could so albeit it would take much longer than it’s WEP counterpart. With a high-end desktop PC, a hacker could go through massive lists of passwords and attempt to guess your password using their PC hardware to generate potential passwords in their thousands. This is called brute-forcing and with the aforementioned setup, a hacker could have your password within 30 days. If there were extremely determined, then they could set up a network of computers with powerful GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) and potentially, have your password within hours or days.
WPA2 – WiFi Protected Access version 2
WPA2 is an updated algorithm based on (unsurprisingly!) WPA and by default it uses the CCMP encryption protocol which was developed to address the vulnerabilities of WEP. It also provides better security when compared to WPA by ensuring that only authorised users can access information and that authentication provides proof that the users are genuine. In terms of how long a password can be hacked, again, it depends on the setup being used to do this, but typically it will take a good few years with a super-computer, a lot of technical know-how and a real good reason as to why to get into your home network.
These times are extremes to show just how easily certain methods can be used to get into the weaker network security protocols and it also proves that it’s something you do need to consider whilst setting up your wireless network. Don’t just skip through steps to get things done quickly so you can get on YouTube quicker!