NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Change WEP>WPA on Extender Only?
Now that I have my WN2500RP successfully extending my primary WiFi (unfortunately only with WEP encryption - it's the only option from condo-supplied Wifi), I would hope to improve my security by changing the encryption on the extender only, specifically:
Q1. Can the encryption on the extender be upgraded from WEP to WPA or WPA2?
Q2. And, if this is "physically" possible, will it impair or break the communication between the primary router and the extender?
Q1. Can the encryption on the extender be upgraded from WEP to WPA or WPA2?
Q2. And, if this is "physically" possible, will it impair or break the communication between the primary router and the extender?
3 Replies
- Answer to Q1: You have the option the change the security type for the extender. During the installation there is an option where you were asked if you to use the same security mode and password as those for the existing network. If want a different settings then you may uncheck that option. But since you connected already to the main network then you can still change it with the following steps:
1. Open a web browser (chrome,firefox or IE)
2. type www.mywifiext.net
username: admin
password: password
3. On the left side click on the wireless settings
Answer to Q2: Changing the wireless settings of the extender will not affect the connection between the router and the extender. - WPA-PSK is still consider hackable unless you use WPA2
Just 2cents
Between WEP and WPA , both are easy to be hacked . - Hi minions08,
Thanks for your prompt (and informative) response. I was able to access the mywifiext URL and I found the link for changing the wireless settings. But it raised a couple more questions and I'm reluctant to mess up my extender until I'm more comfortable with their answers. I'd appreciate it if you (or anyone) could elaborate a bit further:
1. Assuming that changing the extender's encryption from WEP to WPA or WPA2 is successful, will it afford me any additional security from hackers, or is the weak link still the primary network, which must remain as WEP-encrypted? In other words, since the data flowing through the extender must first come through the WEP router, is there any advantage to changing the extender's encryption level?
2. If I change the extender's encryption from WEP to WPA or WPA2, must I keep the same passphrase as that of the router (as I had to when first set up - see note below), or can I assign any arbitrary passphrase to the extender?
(Note: In order to initially extend the primary WEP router, I had no choice but to use identical "26hex" passphrases for both the router and the extender to make it work - apparently with WEP encryption, using different passphrases and/or using the router's original Ascii passphrase are not options - and not following this rule consistently resulted in failure. See my 6/22 post entitled "Limited WN2500RP Success - Help?")
