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Wireless Security Help

By rickkellogg ·
About 6 months ago I decided to add Wireless Internet capability in both of our Automobile Dealerships. Did some Google research and found a company Vicomsoft in the UK that offered a DHCP Server Download on a 30 day trial. So off I went to purchase a Linksys Access Point and began the test. I had set up 16 Ip Addresses on the DHCP Server the limit of the access point. I fired it up and it worked like a charm.

Did not give a lot of thought to security other than to have the power settings on the PC's housing the DHCP shut down after 90 minutes of inactivity. Thus after hours and weekends the wireless system is off. The machines I installed the servers on are both used almost continously so they never time out for 90 minutes during business hours.

How concerned should I be that someone may access out accounting system for example through the wireless connection. This system is in a different workgroup on the same LAN as the wireless network. However, the accounting system is password protected, or is it?

As one of the main reasons for adding wireless was for customer use I had to set up so customers could pick up without having a static IP Address.

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Some Security Tips

by rdubrey In reply to Wireless Security Help

With giving ease of use to the customer you almost HAVE to leave some security functions off. Normally in secure wireless you would disable SSID broadcast, change the SSID default name, filter by MAC address, and use 128bit WEP and some simple security. But since you are wanting easy access to the internet then you are going to have to put that wireless access point on the outside of the company network and/or firewall. I have heard of companies putting their wireless on a whole other ISP and different router but that seems expensive and I guess would only be "practicable" in bigger installations but is a simple option if the other proves to be too complicated and time consuming. Hope that helps. Rob

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