AirPort 3.3 Extends WPA Security 42
tackaberry writes "Apple has released an update for AirPort. Version 3.3 (AEBS firmware version 5.3) includes support for Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) specification for non-Extreme AirPort cards (WPA was added for Extreme cards last fall in version 3.2), an alternative to the oft-maligned Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). Those who wish to use WPA will have to have Mac OS X Panther 10.3."
Re:What's wrong with WEP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's wrong with WEP? (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a Mac...and I'm assuming you do...go check out the Kismac tool.
WPA also has some weaknesses...mainly in the WPA-PSK (pre-shared key) implementation that most home users use. You can do a dictionary attack against the key.
Re:What's wrong with WEP? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What's wrong with WEP? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's wrong with WEP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Still left out in the cold for Cisco (Score:4, Informative)
WPA PSK Dictionary attack (Score:5, Informative)
In general, any scheme where you send a random number to the client, he takes that and adds the secret sauce and sends it back for your comparison is vulnerable to offline dictionary attack.
The good news is that you can pretty easily trash an offline dictionary attempt by making up a really long and obscure passphrase.
Re:What's wrong with WEP? (Score:3, Informative)
In a word, YES. WEP is a horribly insecure protocol. All it takes is time, and you can sniff WEP keys out of the air. My basic strategy for securing WiFi is to place the access point outside of my firewall, and use some VPN (or a simple ssh tunnel) to access my "real" network.
The moral: never rely on WEP to secure your network, always use some higher-level encryption to secure sensitive information.
Can't use WPA with WDS (Score:4, Informative)
If you've set up multiple AirPort Extreme Base Stations as a wireless distribution system (WDS) to extend your network, you have to use WEP for security. WPA cannot be used with WDS.
If you want to use WPA, you'll have to string your base stations together on the lan
Re:*&^%$#@ it! I want WPA for non-Extreme hard (Score:3, Informative)
Works great with DLink DI624. (Score:3, Informative)
Just installed the 1.2.8 firmware for my DLink DI624 (b) and turned it on. It works great! Bit weirded out by one thing, though: Apple's system profiler lists the AirPort card's firmware as 3.3b1. Bad Apple!
Re:WPA PSK Dictionary attack (Score:5, Informative)
Linksys upgraded to support WPA (Score:2, Informative)
My iBook G4 running Panther connects to my router just fine using WPA Personal (Pre-shared key in Linksys). Although I've been thinking of playing around with WPA Enterprise (RADIUS), but that takes time