MAC address is supposed to be a unique identifier of the hardware manufacturer. You can go to this web site and find out what manufacturer your MAC address is registered to.

This is true; however, as bumpme pointed out, MAC addresses can be spoofed. My old Netgear router allowed me to provide whatever address I wanted, which it would supply in response to a query instead of the original, unique number.

This is very useful, for example, if your ISP somehow ties your service to a MAC address in order to get you to pay more for the privilege of networking your home. With the netgear, you could splice the router in between the computer and the modem, and the ISP would never know the difference. If the modem interrogates the router, it's given the "approved" MAC address.

bumpme, In order to spoof the MAC address, don't you have to know what it is in the first place?

Just make sure it's WPA and not WEP. WEP adds (at most) an extra 10 minutes or so to the required time to break (it's tied to the strength of the IV in your particular brand of WEP). I had a friend tout to me the "security" of his wireless implementation--took about 12 minutes and a copy of auditor linux and the WEP key was cracked, sniffed the SSID, cloned his PC's MAC, dissassociated his PC, and had my laptop on the network in it's place.

WPA is another story.

If you are truly concerned about security, then you may want to try a PGP product for e-mails, and a tunneler for surfing.

M8

There's also a good discussion in this thread, through app. message #20

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...0&page=1&pp=15

Take note of the relevance placed on who might be likely attackers, ... do you live in a multi-unit dwelling or in a suburban environment where the closest naighbor is several hundred feet away.

Another thought: if you're not actively using a wireless connection, disable wireless access. Most people leave it on all the time for convenience, but why take a chance? I'd prefer the slight inconvenience of having to enable my access point each time I want to use it for an extended period, rather than leaving it up all the time and hoping that I didn't overlook a security hole.

Related to the idea of turning it off when not in use...

One of my neighbors (don't know which one) has an unencrypted wireless access point I can reach from within my house. I've run a network scan a couple times just to see the names of the machines and figure out who it is. Each time I've done it, though, it looks like I'm the only machine on this segment of his network... meaning that it's hardly ever in use. if it's hardly ever in use, why leave it on constantly, ya know?

why leave it on? Mine doesn't even have a switch. I would need to unplug it. Also, it means I can start to work right away. No need to power up a device. Another reason is that my machines may be accessing the internet when I am away.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I should have said "turn off or disable wireless access". You're right, certain routers might not allow this. In that case, a user might want to remove any detachable antennas.

I second the advice here. Securing a wireless network, and being confident you've got it secure, is a pain in the butt, sad to say. Basically, cleartext (unencrypted) or WEP is insecure, while WPA ought to be quite solid, assuming you have picked a good secret key/password.

i can follow but want to know what packages you used on auditor linux for each stage?

also are you able to automount a usb thumbdrive? or manually using CL

A note of warning.

My Linksys WAP/router is WPA enabled - so I thought "great" - let's shift from WEP/MAC to WPA/MAC security.

But before you do anything - also make sure the wireless card in your notebook/desktop supports WPA! Mine doesn't, and it caused me all sorts of grief.

It might depend on the firmware and/or drivers too. When I first got the Linksys 54g card for my old notebook, the drivers at the time didn't support WPA. A couple of months later, they released new drivers that did.

FewMiles..

Also be mindful of mixed wireless devices on you LAN. I have a webcam and Laptop, one supports WEP only the other does both WEP & WPA. So I have to use the WEP.

Same for me. I need to replace just one component of my network to advance to WPA from WEP. Just one device forces all my wireless devices to use WEP.