Platinum Edition Using® Microsoft® Windows® XP

Wireless Network Security

Another major security hole in many networks has come about from the recent explosion in wireless networking with 802.11b and 802.11a devices.

→ Refer to the “Wireless Networking” section in Chapter 17, “Building Your Own Network,” for more information about setting up wireless networks.

With wireless networking, unencrypted data packets are being broadcast through the air, where they're just waiting to be picked up by drive-by hackers. In addition, if your wireless connection is not secured, it might be possible for someone to connect to your wireless access point as if he were a legitimate client on your network. After that, he would have access to any unprotected resources on your network, which could include such ...