User's Manual

Wireless Security Configuration 5-1
202-10065-01
Chapter 5
Wireless Security Configuration
This chapter describes how to configure the security features of your NETGEAR Super AG
Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter WG111U.
Understanding the Security Options
For a full discussion of wireless security technologies, please see “Wireless Networking
Overview” on page B-1. The WG111U configuration utility provides the following security
options:
•WEP
Wired Equivalent Privacy is an existing, widely implemented and supported, data encryption
protocol for 802.11 wireless networks. All wireless nodes on the network are configured with
a static 64-bit or 128-bit Shared Key for data encryption but authentication is optional.
• WPA-PSK
WPA Pre-Shared Key (WPA-PSK) performs authentication and strong data encryption that
includes dynamic key generation based on a pre-shared key. WPA-PSK does not need
RADIUS or certificate servers.
When you use the WG111U configuration utility to configure these security options, you can save
your settings in a profile. For example, if you use WPA-PSK at work but WEP at home, you can
have work and home profiles that make it easy to switch from one environment to the other. For
more information on configuring profiles, see “Using Configuration Profiles” on page 4-1.
Note: The instructions in this section refer to the NETGEAR WG111U configuration
utility. For Windows XP users to use the NETGEAR configuration utility, the Windows
XP configuration utility must be deselected. If you did not enable the NETGEAR utility
when you installed the WG111U Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter, open the network
connections from the system tray icon, click the Properties button, click the Wireless
Networks tab and then clear the “Use Windows to configure my wireless network
settings” check box.