Wi-Fi Security: Switch to WPA3

Wi-Fi networks can be vulnerable to a particular kind of denial of service attack. While data transmitted on a Wi-Fi network is encrypted, the exchanges which take place to get on a Wi-Fi network may not be. Wi-Fi networks use radiowaves which can easily be intercepted. A malicious actor can send de-authentication packets to disconnect a device from a Wi-Fi network. The purpose of these is to force a user to login back on, so the attack can gain access to the authentication data.

The password for a Wi-Fi network is not actually transmitted. It is used as a factor in generating a key. The attacker would review the data in effort to get the key.

The WPA3 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 3) standard, released in 2018, allows for a more secure form of key exchange. Windows 7 will not support WPA3, which is another good reason to install Windows 10 which does. The Wi-Fi router you are using must also support WPA3.

On Windows 10, in order to confirm that you have a connection using WPA3, select the Wi-Fi icon in the system tray at the bottom right of screen, and then click on Properties for the Wi-Fi network you're on. Scroll down and you should see a reference to either WPA2 or WPA3 in the security type field.

If you have Windows 10 updated, it should use WPA3 if your router supports it and has been set to it using the admin login. You can login into the router using an IP address for your provider, and then using the login information printed on the back of the router (unless you changed it, which you should have. See the Tip of the Night for December 29, 2020.) When you make the change in your router's account, should get a nice little notification from Windows 10 like this: