With WiFi connections, we are no longer tied to using a network cable to surf the Internet or connect to the local network. Thanks to WiFi devices such as smartphones, tablets but also TVs and consoles have been able to integrate increasingly advanced features, benefiting from the advantages of the Internet without being enslaved by a bulky cable.
The absence of the wire, however, has opened an important security "hole" when it comes to controlling the devices that we can connect to our modem: without adequate protection anyone can take advantage of the home wireless network to surf the Internet without paying nothing and making civil and criminal liability fall on us (if the freeloader unloads music and films illegally with our network, the competent authorities will take it with us).
If we are a beginner with WiFi we have to learn how to protect our wireless network and what WEP, WPA and WPA2 means, so as not to be found unprepared and "exploited" by smarter people.
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1) What does WEP mean, the weakest protection (to be avoided) :
The first form of protection that we can apply to our WiFi network is WEP, a fairly old and obsolete security protocol that offers only minimal protection against unwanted intrusions.
In the early days of WiFi, it was one of the most widely used, but methods of violating it have grown like bread (complete with detailed guides) and it is now possible to illegally obtain the WEP access password in a few seconds, even from a mobile phone!
So using WEP protection is like having no active protection: we will keep users with little computer knowledge away while anyone who knows how to use the Internet a little will steal our access password and use our connection without problems, even with a long password .
Better not to use it !
2) Which means WPA, the most compatible protection :
To respond to WEP vulnerabilities, a much more effective security protocol was born: WPA .
WPA is more difficult to violate and allows to still obtain a good level of protection in all usage scenarios, in particular by choosing a fairly long password and modern encryption (such as AES).
For home use, reference is made to the WPA-PSK, i.e. password access (to distinguish it from the WPA-Enterprise, where a server and a valid certificate are required for each connection).
WPA remains sensitive to dictionary attacks, i.e. those hacker attacks in which the attacker uses a database of common words to guess the password used by making several attempts in a second (the speed depends on the power of the PC used for hacking): if we use WPA is better to choose a nice long password that does not contain any reference to names, people, dates, birthdays or any word that can be indexed in a dictionary.
WPA has been replaced by WPA2 but remains available to connect old WiFi devices that are not compatible with the new protocol, not surprisingly many modern routers offer mixed WPA / WPA2 protection: if the device is recent the modem will always use WPA2, otherwise it will use WPA for maximum compatibility.
3) What does WPA2 mean, the most effective protection :
Currently the most effective protection system for any WiFi network is WPA2 .
Born as an evolution of WPA, it offers a very high level of encryption (uses AES and CCMP automatically) and is less sensitive to dictionary attacks, which makes it the best "padlock" that we can put on our wireless network.
For home use, reference is made to the WPA2-PSK, i.e. password access (to distinguish it from the WPA2-Enterprise, where a server and a valid certificate are required for each connection).
We always recommend using WPA2 if we all have recent devices (released on the market at least from 2010 onwards), while if we have some older device still working we recommend adopting mixed protection, namely WPA / WPA2 (it will be our modem / router to choose the best protection based on the device that requires the connection).
4) Change WiFi protection
Now that we know what the various abbreviations WEP, WPA and WPA2 mean, we will show you how to quickly change the type of protection.
This change can only be made on the control panel of the modem / router, so before proceeding we will have to access this panel.
In most cases, simply open a browser on a device already connected to the network and type one of the following addresses in the upper bar:
192.168.1.1
192.168.0.1
192.168.1.254
We will thus have access to the modem login screen and, after entering the username and password (if we have never changed the credentials, they are usually admin / admin), we will have access to the configuration panel.
From the configuration panel we look for the section WiFi, Wireless, Wireless Settings or WiFi Security (the names change according to the model of modem or router in possession) to change the type of protection applied to our WiFi network; choose between WPA2-PSK or mixed protection (WPA-PSK together with WPA2-PSK).
If we have a dual band WiFi modem (which also transmits on 5GHz) we will have to make the same change for the other frequency, so as to always have maximum protection whatever the network used.
5) Find out what type of WiFi protection we are using
We don't know what kind of WiFi protection we are exploiting for the network we are connected to "> WiFiAnalyzer.
Once the app is installed, simply open the section reserved for Access Points to find out the protection adopted by the network to which we are connected and the protections adopted by nearby networks.
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