Is hiding your SSID worth it?

Is hiding your SSID worth it?

In practice, hiding the SSID makes no difference whatsoever to the security of your network. Your Wi-Fi router publicizes the SSID in the beacon. However, the SSID and network information also get contained within the data packets. This process occurs so that the router knows where to send the packets when transmitted.

Why does using MAC address filtering not provide significant security for a wireless network?

The main reason why it doesn’t make your network more secure is because it’s really easy to spoof a MAC address. A network hacker, which can literally be anyone since the tools are so easy to use, can easily figure out the MAC addresses on your network and then spoof that address onto their computer.

How does MAC address filtering affect network security?

MAC address filtering doesn’t improve security since network traffic includes the unencrypted MAC address of active network devices. This means anyone can find out a MAC address that’s on the allowed list and then use easily available software to spoof their MAC address.

Why is SSID hiding not a good idea?

SSID hiding doesn’t improve security since it is trivial to identify the SSID of a network that’s in use (download and run inSSIDer for instance), and in fact it can compromise the security of wireless clients that are configured to connect to hidden SSID networks. From a Microsoft TechNet article:

What does a MAC address mean on a router?

Each device you own comes with a unique media access control address (MAC address) that identifies it on a network. Normally, a router allows any device to connect — as long as it knows the appropriate passphrase.

Is it trivial to spoof a MAC address?

MAC spoofing is trivial in most adapters these days, and after you’ve cracked the network to the point you can monitor in-flight packets, you can get a list of valid MAC addresses. SSID is trivial at that point as well. Due to the automated nature of the toolsets available, MAC filtering and SSID hiding aren’t really worth the effort any more.