I ran across this disturbing site in my twitter feed the other day:
http://www.wpacracker.com/
For a little background on network security, networks are very insecure. With freely available software, anyone on the network can read the data packets of everyone else on the network. You should be extremely careful about what passes unencrypted in hotel networks and the like (for instance, logging into Gmail or shopping is probably safe, but signing into your blog might not be). This is not a big problem with wired networks, as obviously a hacker would need physical access to your network. However, with the advent of wireless networks this becomes a problem.
Wireless routers usually fall into three security camps. The first are unprotected. Anyone can join, and consequently, they are more susceptible to data eavesdropping than wired networks.
The second are WEP networks. WEP security is very basic. It essentially inhibits casual visitors, but it has no strength against anyone with a little know-how interested in viewing traffic. With freely available software someone can hack a WEP network in minutes.
The third group are WPA networks. The deal with WPA is that to steal the password you have to try them all. This can take a long time, but this new product allows you to put hundreds of computers to the task to run through a whole dictionary of passwords quickly for the low price of $17.
So what should you do to protect your network? If you live in the country, you’re probably safe. If you live in a populated are you should definitely use WPA encryption and pick a password that is NOT in the dictionary–that is, a combination of letters and numbers longer than 6 characters that do not spell a word or phrase, even in 1337 speak. For instance, “pa55w0rd” is not safe. That should thwart most cracking attempts.