Is Wireless more secure than wire one?

[JohnHACK]

I've been reading one article mentioned that Wireless is more secure than wire one. But is that easy for hacker to hack our system via wireless (what i mean here is home wireless), hacker maybe our neighbour just get the wireless modem and he ready to hack our line, because we wont know who is going to use our line. - This is my thought as I'm still weak in Computer Security.

In the article that I read, I'm not really understood, because there's a lot of jargons.

John.

[Soda_Popinsky]

I would say wireless is less secure... Its vulnerable to all the same attacks as wired, plus wap cracking, mac spoofing, wardriving. Link the article if you can.

[kr5kernel]

If you are asking whether you are more prone to exploits and security compromise attempts as a result of going wireless rather than wired, its a two way street. Packet sniffing depends on the setup of either, I.E. it is easier to sniff off a hub rather than a switched environment. If you take proper precautions though with wireless, you shoud be fine. In my experience, the most common thing is people choosing weak WEP keys, or not putting a password on their Access points. The best thing you can do is pick a strong WEP key and use MAC address filtering, while still spoof-able, it makes it a little harder for people to freeload off your network. Hope this helps.

[pR@nD1+Py]

JohnHACK, do me a favor and just unplug your computer
that could possibly be one of the worst questions ever

[Tim_axe]

JohnHACK - Please link to this article. It might be talking of some special cases, but it would greatly help the discussion if you would post the link.

I'd say that spoofing a MAC address is equally easy in a wired and wireless network (LAN). For example, my MAC address is 00-00-00-00-00-69. I could change it to any value if I felt like it, but I just decided to use that one. It helps me get lower IP #'s from most DHCP servers :)

The issues I see that can make Wireless less secure than a Wired network is that you can't acturally "see" if someone is connected who isn't supposed to be. In a Wired network, it is as simple as tracing that extra CAT-5 cable to the offending PC. (It can be a pain in huge networks, but the home network is pretty easy to do this in) In a Wireless network, you can't see the radio waves with your eyes, so it is only possible to look for suspecious things within 100m of your house. In some corporate networks, with special hardware and software, it is possible to acturally detect where a Wireless connection is originating from in a building.

So this article either talks of some special cases, or is wrong. You can take steps to secure both, but since Wireless is open by nature, on unregulated frequencies, and anyone can listen for it, I'd say that it is inherantly more insecure than wireless. Especially considering that (for the average home wireless network) anyone who has that WEP key (or is otherwise authorized) can listen to all of the data, kinda like the days before Switched Ethernet... So I agree with your conclusion that wireless is less secure, although I'd love to see this article that says otherwise so I can learn why.

-Tim_axe

[neel]

If you're talking about a home network (ONE switch a router and a few computers) a reason I could think off why a wireless network is called "more secure" is because usually all the traffic is encrypted. While it is "easier" to tap in a wireless network with some basic tools the data sent across the connection is safer. If someone taps in to a wired network somehow the data is less safe, because the data usually isn't encrypted. Of course there's alot of instances next to this to be met and a zillion exception etc etc, but usually home users don't bother about fancy anti-haxoring shit... That's just an idea of what the article could be on about.

[Tronic]

Well it all depends really..

I think the mitigating factors in security on wireless based networks versus wired networks, or possibly even a hybrid network topology, is the data flow and data content. The data flow in a wireless network is quite spherical or pyrimidical in nature, depending on what you use as your transmitters. Wired networks have a path they must go by, unlike wireless networks with a tendency to go the extra length with there radio waves. Data content, in this case i'm reffering to not only _how_ you get and receive data, but it's properties, whether they be encrypted, compressed, mangled etc etc. You can only go so far with encryption and compression before someone figures out your game. Heck WEP has been cracked and is now one of the easiest wireless encryptions to find a decryption algorithm for. Wired, has minimal encryption at the beginning if any depending on your methods, and possibly minimal compression. The advantage of wired as far as security goes, is more of a question of data flow, in that why is wireless worse off. Wireless is worse off because of the publics inability to comply with common sense and technological details, in short the public hasn't been exposed to wireless so there is a very strong weakness. Some people don't set up there AP's right so there sending the signal with about 2x the amplitude needed. Thats why alot of you have been able to(i'm assuming you have before), wardrive. The inability for understanding of the technology and it's details, leads to misuse and bad judgement. Why just today I was walking down the street, I found 10 AP's I could connect to, they didn't even have WEP set up..I thought that quite humerous since alot of the distro's of AP's have WEP turned on by default. Now, beyond missunderstanding, what is understood? Well, wired is understood. Wireless if fairly new to many people, they don't understand it..wired, however, has been around for many years.

So the bottom line now is, at the question of whether or not wireless or wired networks are more secure or not, it depends on who is running them. The AP's I found were owned by very stupid people that didn't think of security. However I moved down a block to a friends house that I _knew_ had a wireless network setup, I had to come within an inch of his house to do anything, and even then he had extremely tight security..he knew what he was doing.

Now that thats settled, I would have to say that wireless is less secure _if_ you don't set it up correctly. And even then it's extremely vulnerable, we don't yet have all of the much needed tools for wireless, but were getting there. So at the present time I would have to say Wired networks are more secure. Simply because there is no issue of someone driving around and scoping out your poorly configured AP, you say "Hmm...I thought I set it to only amplify to 10 meters....", well if it's 20m..how are you supposed to know? Many people don't know how to figure these things out. With wired networks you have a path to go through, there is no un-needed data flowing through the air.

[!mitationRust]

Wow...nice grammar skills almost looks like text book fashion!

I guess I'll throw in a 2-3 word quips.

Originally posted
here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=256325#post733323) by Soda_Popinsky
I would say wireless is less secure.....

Actually, wireless can be very secure "line of site" DoD applies that I believe.

[pooh sun tzu]

In the article that I read, I'm not really understood, because there's a lot of jargons.

And because of that, I understand why a few of the above answers may be confusing, even if they are very very good answers.

Allow me to explain it a bit for you in softer terms. You see, think of the security of wireless internet like throwing a baseball around in the air. You and a friend are playing catch one day, and some random person grabs the ball out from the middle of the air, and runs off with it.

In that same way, your information is going back and forth through the air, just waiting for a computer to reach up and listen to all of your data. Sometimes you can configure the wireless internet to be encrypted (like giving the baseball a harder shell, or putting it in a metal container to protect it), and that does make it a bit more secure. However, eventually it can be broken, and like the baseball in the metal shell, the information will be wide open.


However, when used in a normal wired internet, things get complicated. Imagine a slide at a city park, the kind where you climb up the latter and then slide down the slide part of it. You start at the top, and because the slide makes you go a certain direction, you can only follow it. The man running across the park can't grab you out of the air, because you are contained safley within that little slide tube, until you come out.

In that same way, a wired connection is data being transmitted from one computer directly to the next, no questions asked. In order to actually get the information being transmitted, you either have to wait for it to come out one of the ends (like on the slide) to grab it after it leaves the tube, or cut open the slide and add a new part of the slide just for yourself that makes the kid slide a different way rather than out the normal end. The same applies to information, as someone would have to wait for another computer to receive it before getting it, or place their computer between the two computers talking to one another and make the information come to him instead of the other computer.

It can get much much more complicated than that, but that is the easiest way to understand it. Wired is less secure because anyone can grab it anywhere (in a sense) rather than be forced to wait for a computer to get it and then try to break into that computer to get the data.

[disturb]

man i thought i could'nt spell. I could'nt understand half of what you wrote :confused:

did you meen that some one that has a wireless router just like yours could pick up the signall
??? :confused:

no offence but can you write the Quistion again ,so that i can help you

[!mitationRust]

) , ( 4 k IV RC C P Å =

John attack, remeber attackers usually try to take advantage of everything in it's current state, alot of times these objects & software are shipped "loose" out_of_the_pkg. It's up to you on how fuctional & secure you want it to be. It's up to you to apply the policies so kindly provided by our GOV the NSA ect.....They have unclassified and released several PDF's that are available via google,digital libraries & whatnot.

Try to apply these standards,policies & proceedures to your wireless connection, I mean what does the DoD know about security? It's made public for a reason.

EXAMPLE: Of some recommendations & policies made by the NSA & our GOV ect.....

These recommendations include:

· Mutual Authentication
· Layer two encrypted tunnel
· Strong cryptographic integrity verification

Without these features, not only is a WLAN vulnerable, but the entire information
infrastructure of which it is a part is at risk. We also recommend per-packet
authentication although we would not go so far as to make it a requirement.

http://www.itoc.usma.edu/Documents/ITOC_TR-2003-101_(G6).pdf
http://www.fwuf.gov/slides/may02slides/wiltshire.pdf
http://iase.disa.mil/policy.html
http://www.sessionware.com/Download/Cryptoberry/DOD_Wireless_Strategy_011603.pdf
https://infosec.navy.mil/Documents/doc?type=dodd&tab=dod

The more you read john the better, I'd rather give you a more advance answer than just telling you yes or no & giving you a answer that I feel that is to your level of knowledge. John, sometimes I think your a troll probe or another member, but rather than judging you here, I'll give you "benifit of the doubt" & provide you some helpfull info.

[pooh sun tzu]

I'd rather give you a more advance answer than just telling you yes or no

You must teach someone to walk before they can run, or important bits of information and technique can be lost. If he can understand it in an easier way, then so be it. Putting things in more techincal terms does no one any good if he still does not understand it.

As his first post said, too much technical information and jargon confuse him. Many people are like that, and can not just take a direct/logical approach to everything. And that is fine, and we must respect his way of learning just as I respect how you choose to learn.

[!mitationRust]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=256325#post737624) by pooh sun tzu


You must teach someone to walk before they can run, or important bits of information and technique can be lost. If he can understand it in an easier way, then so be it. Putting things in more techincal terms does no one any good if he still does not understand it.

As his first post said, too much technical information and jargon confuse him. Many people are like that, and can not just take a direct/logical approach to everything. And that is fine, and we must respect his way of learning just as I respect how you choose to learn.

And as I stated john must read before typing or google/read before asking. Everyone has learning curves,that's fine but when people throw "security" curve balls at you, your either are intrested or your not. " you will proceed in reading and exploring or you will give up.
As I stated john can read jargon via google & PDF's

Example: If john does not understand what Mutual Authentication is , he can type it in and the first link he will find will be what it is http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Mutual+Authentication&btnG=Google+Search
ect........

"Maximum Security For The Connected World" is what I'm after on this site & on the front page. Not simpleton questions & tech support ," I want maximum security questions" & debates. Stuff I can learn from,IMHO I'm kinda tired of seeing the same tech support and "what is the best" questions. "

in·san·i·ty
n. pl. in·san·i·ties
1. Doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results."
You know what I mean. It's just my point of view, but ,I want hardcore stuff on the front board 24/7. The rest can play catch up in the noobie forums. I want AO to live up to it's name and banner. Maybe it's alot to ask but then again It's just my OP.

[Phat_Penguin]

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1489&page=1

Nice article for beginners about wireless and the security of same, including tips on securing it.

I run a wireless access point at home for my laptop - 256bit encryption, SSID off and MAC filtering enabled - if the neighbours are that computer savvy to connect to it - I would enjoy having a beer with them and discussing their obvious computer skills :) ......... I also keep a close eye on logs, even the flashing lights on the hardware to indicate activity when there shouldn't be any - so they wouldn't stay connected for long !!

I feel as secure as I could possibly be without throwing up an electric fence and razor wire.

[thing0]

anyone knows more guides and documents about wireless networks, not only about security? i don't know the equipment to be used.

[Phat_Penguin]

thing0,

Take a look at this site http://members.iinet.net.au/~clark/FreeNet/index.htm ..... will give you a good idea of the bits and pieces you need to build a wireless network.

It will give you a fair "heads up" on what to Google for, there are hundreds of sites out there.

With a basic understanding of networking it doesn't take very long to set up. Most wireless access points can be accessed via a web browser and offer standard security of WEP, MAC filtering and the ability to turn off the SSID - adequate for the home user, but in a corporate environment I would be looking for something better or staying with the wire :)

Wireless at home is great, its quick to set up, no drilling, feeding cables into wall cavities or having them laying around .... great if you are renting, dont want the mess, like to change rooms around a lot or even for hosting LAN parties if everyone is wireless capable ... it definitely has its good and bad points.

Until a DSL service became available via the phone line at my home, I shared a 1.5mb DSL with a family member in a neighbouring suburb for over 12 months via wireless without problems, worked fantastically - until the other end lost power of course :) ... I am no computer/networking guru, just read a lot and found a local wireless group and asked questions then set it up - its not as difficult as you might imagine.