![]() Sitting in your parking lot or some other easily accessible location, an intruder armed with the right hardware and software can easily sniff your wireless network and capture all packets sent to and from your access points. The problem comes when an intruder wants to gain access to your network and has decided to sniff your wireless network traffic. ![]() MAC filters act to keep unauthorized clients from becoming associated with the WAP. In short, the client now has complete access to the rest of the network, both wireless and wired. To be associated with a WAP implies that the client is fully connected to the WAP and is now allowed to pass traffic through the AP. In wireless-speak, “to authenticate to a WAP” simply means to announce your identity to the other station-in this case, the AP.Ĭlients can be either authenticated or associated.Īuthentication can take place using either open system or shared key (WEP) methods. Some are merely authenticated, while others are completely associated. ![]() In Figure A, which was generated from a Cisco 1200 AP, you can see quite a few clients making connections to the WAP. No matter how it’s done, the end result is a list of MAC addresses that you use to allow or disallow access. Normally you’ll enter this information into the WAP’s configuration utility, usually from a Web-based interface, although you can also do it from a console session or some other form of remote control. The most common configuration has a list of allowed MAC addresses-the trusted and known MAC addresses that are supposed to be on the wireless LAN.Įxactly where you enter the allowed MAC addresses varies, depending on the WAP you use. MAC filtering is the process of configuring an access point with a list of MAC addresses that will either be allowed or not allowed to gain access to the rest of the network via that WAP. In this Daily Feature, I’ll show you how MAC filtering works and describe some of its pitfalls.īefore I discuss why MAC filters aren’t the perfect security solution, let’s examine what MAC filters are and how they work. In reality, relying on MAC filtering to protect your wireless network is pretty much the same as leaving the front door open and asking an intruder to come on in and stay a while. ![]() What they may not know is that MAC filtering is extremely ineffective as a sole security measure. In the rush to move away from WEP and its supposed weakness, many organizations have implemented Media Access Control (MAC) filtering as their sole wireless access point (WAP) security measure. If you’re familiar with 802.11b wireless networking, you’ve no doubt heard the horror stories about how weak Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is. ![]()
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January 2023
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