29 July 2005

WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2)

I just noticed that my there's a firmware update available for one of my wireless routers I use at home to support WPA2. I haven't delved into WPA2 so far, but may now give it a chance if I'm feeling brave. I'm always nervous when it comes to applying firmware or BIOS updates after having a power outage a year or so ago during the course of flashing a motherboard BIOS. Needless to say, it died never to run again. It was an old-ish computer though, so gave me a good reason to upgrade :-).

Note that to support WPA2 on Windows XP SP2, you'll need an update documented in KB 893357. Now, what do I need to do to make this run on my Windows Server 2003 SP1 laptop......? I downloaded the fix but setup bombed with "The updatebr.inf file is invalid".

 

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# Steve Lamb said:
WPA2 is also known as 802.11i - it was recently certified by the IEEE. It brings AES cryptography to replace DES and has some denial of service protection.

WPA is more than enough for a home environment IMHO but if you have the option of WPA2 then it's a nice to have.
29 July 05 at 4:31 PM
# Steve Lamb's Blog said:
My colleague John Howard recently added a post talking about upgrading the firmware on his wireless router...
29 July 05 at 4:48 PM
# Michael Kleef ::: MSFT said:
As I promised I finished my Securing Wireless Networks blogcast and prepared a little article to go with...
01 August 05 at 5:10 AM
# Rob D. said:
I tried updating our network to WPA2. We have a Cisco solution, using Cisco A and A/B/G cards. The Access points have either A/B or A/G. The older access points won't take the upgrade, because the onboard processor can't handle the AES encryption. So we are stuck at WPA, for now.
01 August 05 at 5:16 PM

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