Mac Address Filtering - THOMSON Gateway Configuration Manual

3.2

MAC Address Filtering

What is MAC address filtering?
An early authentication method is MAC address filtering or authentication. Like all other IEEE 802 networks,
802.11 uses 48-bit station (or network cards) identifiers in the frame headers. MAC address filtering verifies
the wireless station's MAC address against a locally configured list, the Access Control List (ACL), containing
all allowed addresses or against an external authentication server.
Address filtering was never part of the standard, but it has been widely deployed nevertheless. MAC address
filtering can be used to augment the 802.11 authentication.
Vulnerable security
MAC address filtering offers a very low level of security because it can be circumvented easily in two ways:
>
MAC authentication is linked to the hardware that a person is using and not to the identity of the user.
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Software to change the MAC address of WLAN cards is available on the Internet.
How to configure MAC address filtering?
To configure MAC address filtering on your Thomson Gateway, see
residential devices or
28
" Access control" on page 76
" Configure page" on page 57
for business devices.
Chapter 3
Security
for
E-DOC-CTC-20060609-0001 v2.0