User Manual

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3.2. Security
In this page, you can configure the security of your wireless network. Selecting different method
can make different levels of security. However, no matter what kind of authentication or encryption
you use to prevent data packets from being eavesdropped by people without authentication, it may
cause decrease of the data throughput of the wireless connection.
Authentication and Encryption
There are several kinds of authentication of MZK-W04NU wireless Router. After selecting the
authentication mode, it has to cooperate with the encryption type. The settings of authentication
on the destination network must be the same with MZK-W04NU.
Open System –If enabling this mode, there is no need authentication to access AP or wireless NIC.
Pre-Shared Key – Only those who are sharing the same key with the AP can connect with it.
WEP –WEP is short for Wired Equivalent Privacy, a security protocol for WLANs defined in the
802.11b standard. WEP is designed to provide the same level of security as that of a wired LAN.
WEP aims to provide security by encrypting data over radio waves so that it is protected as it
transmitted from one end point to another. There are two kinds of WEP encryption: 64 bit and 128
bit. 64 bit needs 10 hex characters to be the key and 128 bit needs 26 hex characters.
WPA – is short for Wi-Fi Protected Access. It was designed to improve upon the security features
of WEP. The technology is designed to work with existing Wi-Fi products that have been enabled
with WEP. Through the data encryption, access control and authentication, it provides better
protection over data transmission. WPA uses 128-digit keys to ensure the wireless network privacy
and security.
WPA2 – is short for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2. It is the follow on security method to WPA for
wireless networks that provides stronger data protection and network access control. It provides
enterprise and consumer Wi-Fi users with a high level of assurance that only authorized users can
access their wireless networks. There are two versions of WPA2: WPA2-Personal, and WPA2-
Enterprise. WPA2-Personal protects unauthorized network access by utilizing a set-up password.
WPA2-Enterprise verifies network users through a server. WPA2 is backward compatible with WPA.
WPA-PSK – is short for Wi-Fi Protected Access-Pre-Shared Key. WPA-PSK uses the same
encryption way with WPA, and the only difference between them is that WPA-PSK recreates a
simple shared key, instead of using the user’s certification.
TKIP – is short for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. TKIP scrambles the keys using a hashing
algorithm and, by adding an integrity-checking feature, ensures that the keys haven’t been
tampered with.
AES – is short for Advanced Encryption Standard. AES is a symmetric 128-bit block data
encryption technique. It has a fixed block size of 128-bits and a key size of 128, 192, or 256-bits.
Pass Phrase – Pass Phrase also named Shared Secret which is used only when enabling WPA-PSK