Wi-Fi Protected Setup; Installing The Wn604 Wireless Access Point - NETGEAR WN604 - Wireless-N 150 Access Point Reference Manual

There are several ways you can enhance the security of your wireless network:
• Restrict Access Based on MAC address. You can restrict access to only trusted PCs so that
unknown PCs cannot wirelessly connect to the WN604. MAC address filtering adds an
obstacle against unwanted access to your network, but the data broadcast over the wireless link
is fully exposed.
• Turn Off the Broadcast of the Wireless Network Name (SSID). If you disable broadcast of
the SSID, only devices that have the correct SSID can connect. This nullifies the wireless
network "discovery" feature of some products such as Windows XP, Vista and Unix systems
but the data is still fully exposed to a determined snoop using specialized test equipment like
wireless sniffers.
• Use WEP. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) data encryption provides data security. WEP
open authentication and WEP data encryption will block all but the most determined
eavesdropper.
• Use WPA or WPA-PSK. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) data encryption provides data
security. The very strong authentication along with dynamic per frame rekeying of WPA make
it virtually impossible to compromise. Because this is a new standard, wireless device driver
and software availability may be limited.
Note: WEP and TKIP provide only legacy rates of operation. So, AES is the
recommended solution to use the 802.11n rates and speed.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup

You can also use Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) to automatically configure your AP to the best
available security options (see

Installing the WN604 Wireless Access Point

Before installing the NETGEAR Wireless N150 Access Point WN604, you should make sure that
your Ethernet network is up and working. You will be connecting the access point to the Ethernet
network so that computers with 802.11b/g/n wireless adapters will be able to communicate with
computers on the Ethernet network. In order for this to work correctly, verify that you have met all
of the system requirements, shown on
Basic Installation and Configuration
NETGEAR Wireless N150 Access Point WN604 Reference Manual
"Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)" on page
"System Requirements" on page
v1.0, March 2010
3-5).
1-5.
2-3