NETGEAR WG602 manual Protecting Your Wireless Network, Security Configuration

Configuration	Description
	Request to Send Threshold. The packet size that is used to
	determine if it should use the CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense
	Multiple Access with Collision Detection) mechanism or the
	CSMA/CA mechanism for packet transmission. With the
	CSMA/CD transmission mechanism, the transmitting station
RTS Threshold	sends out the actual packet as soon as it has waited for the silence
	period. With the CSMA/CA transmission mechanism, the
	transmitting station sends out an RTS packet to the receiving
	station, and waits for the receiving station to send back a CTS
	(Clear to Send) packet before sending the actual packet data.
	Default: 2346
	This is the maximum packet size used for fragmentation.
	Packets larger than the size programmed in this field will be
Fragmentation Length	fragmented. The Fragment Threshold value must be larger
	than the RTS Threshold value.
	Default: 2346
	A long transmit preamble may provide a more reliable
Preamble Type	connection or slightly longer range. A short transmit preamble
	gives better performance.
	Default: Long
	The Delivery Traffic Indication Message specifies the data
DTIM	beacon rate between 1 and 16384.
	Default: 1

Security Configuration

To prevent unauthorized wireless stations from accessing data transmitted over the network, the Security Settings screen of the Access Point Setup offers use of an authentication protocol as well as data encryption, known as WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy).

For a step-by-step treatment of security setup, see Enabling Basic Wireless Access Security Features on page 18.

1.Use a browser to connect to the WG602.

2.Click Security Settings on the Access Point Setup menu and log in.

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3.Choose your authentication method.

To set authentication for WG602 Wireless Access Point, select the Open System or Shared Key Authentication Type by selecting the radio button. All other devices using this band must share this setting. Shared Key operation offers an increase in security over an Open System operation.

4.Setup 802.11b/g WEP encryption security as needed.

For 802.11b/g, all four keys must have the same encryption level — 64-bit or 128-bit.

All devices in the network must have the same key values in for the selected encryption key. The encryption key selected as the default determines the encryption level at which the access point is transmitting.

For 64-bits encryption:

Hexadecimal: 10 hexadecimal digits in the range of "A-F", "a-f" and "0-9" (e.g. 11AA22BB33).

For 128-bits encryption:

Hexadecimal: 26 hexadecimal digits in the range of "A-F", "a-f" and "0-9" (e.g. 00112233445566778899AABBCC).

Passphrase:

You can enter a Passphrase to avoid manually entering WEP keys. It is case-sensitive.

5.When you are done, click the Apply button and then the Reboot button for the changes to take effect.

3 Protecting Your Wireless Network

The absence of a physical connection between nodes makes wireless links vulnerable to information theft. This chapter describes how to use the basic security features of the WG602 Wireless Access Point to protect your network.

Although your network traffic may already be encrypted, the security steps described here are easy to perform.

Enabling Basic Wireless Access Security Features

There are several steps you can take to secure your wireless network:

•Change the factory default administrator password of the WG602.

• Place the WG602 in a location where it cannot be physically tampered with. 18