Security hints

In the course of this book, sometimes we are going to give you additional security hints on building and using a lab or just regarding currently discussed technologies. Security hints will be provided separately because normally they do not belong to the main content of the book, but in our opinion they are still worth mentioning and emphasizing.

So, let's present the first security hints:

• Despite that we apply a lot of security features in the lab, it still contains a lot of vulnerabilities and you are going to test dangerous tools that can be unpredictable sometimes, so we recommend you to connect your lab to an external network or the Internet only when it is really necessary.
• Interoperability with third-party devices should be minimized. For this purpose, access points should be placed in a controlled area. Additionally, signal ranges of our WLANs should be limited, for example, by reducing a signal power of an access point.
• If you need to practice hacking WEP or other weak network security mechanisms, it is wise to save a safe configuration of affected devices and revert to it after practicing to do not forget to configure some important parameters into their safe values.
• When practicing WEP and WPA-PSK hacking, it is wise to physically disconnect a Wi-Fi router from a lab network, so nobody will be able to hack your lab during that time when it stays poorly protected while you are practicing.