WEP is useless, it really is!
I’d heard how insecure and pointless the WiFi security protocol WEP was, but didn’t realise just how bad it was until the other day.
By using the security scanner Aircrack-ng, a laptop/PC and some lessons of YouTube, one really can crack a WEP encrypted WiFi network in less than 5 minutes.
Pretty scary really as there are still a chunk of people out there still using WEP as a means of safeguarding their Wireless Network.
If you have an iPhone for example, load one of the many WiFi scanner Apps, then go for a wonder around your city center. I was in Exeter the other day, in the main high street, and there were at least 29+ wireless networks detectable.
Sure, a large percentage of these were WPA/2, but there was still 3 or 4 that were WEP encrypted and maybe about 1-2 that had no encryption what so ever.
It should be noted though also, that WPA is still not bullet proof. Using the same software and a dictionary file, a WPA network and suffer from a Brute Force attack.
The main things to remember to help maximise your WiFi network then is:
- Turn OFF SSID Broadcast
- DO NOT use WEP but WPA2
- Use a really obscure non English uppercase/lowercase messed up password
- Use MAC filtering if you can
By combing these methods, you should decrease the chance of your network being hacked.
Oh and the obvious thing, is to not even use WiFi unless you really need to. Ethernet cables are more more secure 
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