Member Avatar for forumdude123

My older westell versalink 327W died yesterday, and AT&T offered me a new 2 Wire Modem/Router combo, and i will receive it today. My older modem used 128 bit WEP, no mac address filtering, etc. On my new router, i hear there will be WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK, and WEP. Should i use wpa or wpa2, or will i be fine with wep. I am not familiar with these settings, and the tech support person I spoke with said i should be fine with standard settings. I don't believe the tech support representative, because she didn't sound too sure about what she was talking about.

Is there anything i should do to configure the router other than wep or wpa. Thanks to those who can help.

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Dani AI

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Good follow-up to the replies from , and — here are the practical steps many posts miss. Treat encryption as only one part of router security; do the items below right after you finish the wireless setup.

  • Change the router’s admin username/password (not the Wi‑Fi passphrase). Use a long, unique password and store it securely; losing control of the admin account lets anyone change all settings.
  • Disable remote administration/remote provisioning unless you explicitly need it. If the ISP locked the device for remote updates, ask them what they manage and whether they can restrict access.
  • Apply firmware updates and check periodically. Firmware fixes are the main way manufacturers patch remote‑access and protocol bugs.
  • Turn off WPS and unnecessary services (UPnP, Telnet, SSH) unless an application really needs them — they’re common attack vectors.
  • Create a guest network or VLAN for visitors and IoT devices so printers, cameras or phones aren’t on the same LAN as your main PCs.
  • Narrow the DHCP pool and add DHCP reservations for your trusted devices so unknown devices stand out. Check the “attached devices” list after changes.
  • Don’t rely on SSID hiding or MAC filtering as primary defenses; they only slow casual snoops. Instead use a strong passphrase and keep wireless drivers/firmware up to date.
  • Export or write down your configuration after you finish, and keep a copy in a safe place. If you ever lose access, a factory reset is the usual recovery step.

Quick troubleshooting notes: to reach the admin page find your gateway (Windows: run ipconfig and look for “Default Gateway”; macOS/Linux: ip route or ifconfig). If older devices fail to reconnect after tightening security, update their drivers/firmware, connect them by Ethernet, or replace the adapter.

Document what you changed, review connected devices occasionally, and perform a factory reset + reconfigure if you suspect a compromise.

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Member Avatar for vizard_ichigo

I suggest you use WPA2 or WPA, but this would depend not only on what your wireless adapter supports, but the lowest encryption supported by the other wireless devices or computers in your network. On most cases, you might not find the word WPA as in some routers, they call it as Pre Shared Key or PSK. Also there are those for personal, enterprise, radius etc, just select the one for personal. I had the same problem once but the guys from a support number I called before helped me out and even taught me a few info about it, if you want live assistance in setting your new router, maybe you can try this number 1-877-787-8749, forgot their exact name, suptrix of some sort but I now they could help in some way.

regards,

commented: thanks for your help.... giving rep points in return +1
Member Avatar for zeroth

Hi ForumDude,

WPA PSK is much more secure than WEP - if you get a choice as a subset of that take TKIP. You might get a choice of AES and that would be the most secure if your system will allow...

zeroth

Member Avatar for theshuffler262

WPA2 is the most secure. WPA would be the next alternative and WEP is obsolete, don't even bother with it. If your internal wireless card doesn't support WPA2 you can download an hotfix that will enable your wireless device to be updated to WPA2 on the Microsoft site (assuming your running a Windows OS).

Taking this a little further...you have 2 choices for encryption when using WPA, one is known as AES, the other is known as TKIP. AES encryption is done in the hardware on the card, and not all cards have the circuitry required for AES security, then TKIP is available for you. But, AES is more secure.

The option of WPA2 with "TKIP or AES" allows you to run a mixed system: Those devices that can do WPA2 with AES will use that system, less advanced devices (such as PDA's) that can only do WPA will do WPA with TKIP. If you have a choice between AES and TKIP the safe choice that would work in most circumstances would be the latter.


Also if you use WPA2 and this is a home system you can use WPA2-PSK (pre-shared Key).

All in all, either WPA or WPA2 is the right choice to make, however, I would opt for the latter.

commented: Thanks for your help.... giving u rep points in return +1
Member Avatar for forumdude123

i used wpa tkip personal yada yada yada... it was the highest supported by my wireless card. thanx for all ur help.

Member Avatar for NEHEM

HI,i have been trying to learn visual basic programming language,but no to no avail so,helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllp plsssssssssssss cause i need it for my final year project,first time though.Nehem.

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