Technicolor - Thomson TG784 manual Securing Your Wireless Connection, Encryption methods

4 Wireless

4.3Securing Your Wireless Connection

Introduction

By using encryption, communication between the wireless clients and your Thomson Gateway is protected by a passphrase. Only clients which use the correct network name (SSID) and passphrase can connect to your network.

Encryption methods

During the years a number of encryption types have been developed. The list below gives you an overview of the supported encryption types ordered by security level, you will find the highest level of security at the top of the list:

WPA-PSK Encryption:

The wireless data is being encrypted with a user-defined key. Wireless clients must be configured with this key before they can connect to the Thomson Gateway.

WEP Encryption:

The first encryption type used for wireless connections. Like WPA-PSK it uses a user-defined key, but WEP has been proven to have some security issues. We strongly recommend you to use WPA-PSK instead.

WPA-PSK versions

The Thomson Gateway supports the following WPA-PSK versions:

WPA2 (also referred to as WPA2-PSK):

WPA2 is the most secure version, but not all wireless clients already support it. Before you select this version, make sure all of your wireless clients support it.

WPA+WPA2:

If not all of your wireless clients support WPA2 or you are not sure if they support WPA2, we recommend you to choose WPA+WPA2. Wireless clients that support WPA2 will use WPA2, the others will use WPA.

WPA:

If none of your wireless clients support WPA2 choose this option.

To use WPA2 on Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)you first have to install Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2)/Wireless Provisioning Services Information Element (WPS IE) update or install SP3.

You can find the WPS IE update on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917021.

Which encryption method should I use?

We strongly recommend you to use the highest level of encryption that is supported by all your wireless clients.

Configuring the wireless encryption

Proceed as follows:

1Open the Thomson Gateway Web Interface.

2On the left menu, click Home Network.

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