Page 1 of Help required re secure network

Hope someone here can help me,

I`ve been using a wireless network for about 18 months now but when my mate set it up, he couldn`t configure it so that it was secured. Now I don`t know a huge amount about wireless netowrking so I let it be.

I`m using a linksys WRT54G (v3.0) and the PC adpator is some sort of Belkin USB thing. I know its a fairly old router - bought it second hand of my mate when he upgraded to a 125G rated router.

Anyhow, I switched over to Sky broadband from NTL (aka Virgin). They setup the system as a secure network, but the download speed was extremely poor so i ditched Sky and reverted back to NTL.

I went into the router settings on the linksys and found the page where you can set up a secure network. As the Sky one had been setup via WEP encryption I thought I`d do the same with the linksys and sure enough I managed to get the network secured, and got everything sorted on the PC and two laptops so that they could access my network.

However, after a while I noticed that download speeds were severely redcued. If I was downloading torrents, I could hardly browse the web at all. In fact if I was on the PC and my sis was on her laptop, the net would slow to a crawl. Should this happen with a secure network - does securing/encrypting the connection really slow it down that much?

As a result, I`ve had to revert back to having an unsecure network. Can anyone tell me what I`m doing wrong?

The only other info I can really give from memory is that the key I was using was 8 alphanumeric characters long (think that means its 32 bit??) - I`m pretty sure it was a WEP key as opposed to WPA. All the computers are running XP SP2 (PC running pro - laptops running home).

Sicne reverting to an unsecured network I have updated the router firmware (4.20.8). The security options I have available are WPA Personal, WPA enterprise, WPA2 personal, WPA2 Enterprise, Radius, & WEP.

Can anyone suggest anything to make my network secure AND reliable?

I wouldn`t have expected WEP encyption to hit your download speed that dramatically - are the PC`s old or very low spec ? Did everything return to normal once you turned off the encryption ?

You could try just filtering on MAC address if your router supports this (I think it does) . Shouldn`t be any overhead and will prevent other folk accessing your network.

I`ve got a WRT54g too (older v2).
This is what`s needed to secure it:-
- Give it a new local IP address - 10.x.x.x (don`t use the 192.168.x.x)
- Change the admin password
- Turn off DHCP and give your devices static addresses. If you must use DHCP limit the range to the number of devices you have - e,g, router+PC+Laptop = 3 addys
- Enable WPA security - use the one that your devices support - don`t use WEP (I use WPA personal). Make a note of the shared key code.
- Enable the firewall & use a software firewall too
- Enable MAC security
- Open only the ports you need for internet apps e.g. P2P ports etc
- You could also use an internet access policy if you don`t use your system overnight for example, but this is overkill IMHO.
- Change the default SSID to something meaningless (eg `wallynet`=good, `flat5`=bad)
- When everything set, disable the broadcast SSID.
I used to use 128 bit WEP and got similar problems which stopped when I took the key size to 64 bit.

You pays yer money and takes your choice... ;)

HTH

Andy

This item was edited on Sunday, 18th February 2007, 21:02

thanks for the info guys. Will give the new IP / DHCP / WPA options a try in the next few days when my azureus downloads are complete