WPA2 Keys

Hey everyone, I have a quick question and survey regarding what length keys you guys use on your wireless networks. I'm currently using a simple 8-character key on my WPA-2 secured network. Reason being I have a lot of guests over who connect to our WiFi and especially mobile devices. There is no easy way to input a complete 63-character key into a phone. However, I'm concerned as to how secure this is? Would this short key pose a significant security risk? If so, what are ways I could go about using a more secure key on the network without the hassle of having to manually enter long keys into mobile devices?

 

Short keys are significantly easier to crack so it's not a good solution.
WPS where you need to enter PIN (8 chars) is compromised (see sticky)- normally that would be your easy way.

I keep a txt file on a thumb drive in case I need it. It's easy enough to copy on any computer. It's worse with smart-phones- some of them for some reason do not allow copying-in the password (mine included).

Another solution is to keep a guest network with wireless isolation on. If it gets compromised whoever does that can access the Internet but not your NAS, shared drives etc.

Last but not least. You can use a sentence that doesn't make much sense with no spaces between words- like " V8sare betterthan carrotssince 1942because marrysays so"
It's easy to type in yet really hard to crack.

 

What downloads said, a sentence contains a lot of characters so it is hard to crack, but easy to remember.

 

If you have a lot of people that want to connect with their phones, you could also just set up a QR code with the wifi info embedded and have them scan it. There's various apps and websites that let you do this

 

Some of the newer Dual band routers and maybe single band have a guest network you can setup with lower security. And have it isolated from your main network. You could turn this off and on as required. Or take an old wireless router and turn it into a AP for guest.

The last network I setup I use the strongest possible. > 48 all printable char. Which is next to impossible to enter on a phone. I do not recommend any pass phrases < 20 chr. And nothing that is in dictionaries. So miss spell words on purpose. My boss always told me if someone new it they could never spell it right to gain access. Most of the time spell checkers don't even get close.

I heard of some teenager for fun would have contest to see who could crack a WEP network the fastest.