Security for wireless router

I have been using D-Link's router model # DI-524UP in wired mode for my laptop. Now, I want to use a second laptop to connect to the router in wireless mode.

The second laptop's current OS/security setup is as below :-

a) Win-XP SP2 (completely patched, vetted by Secunia)
b) AVG AV/AS free 9.0
c) ZA firewall free 7.0.483
d) Sundry utilities/protection software : Ccleaner, Spywareblaster
e) Safe browsing habit

Yes, I shall be upgrading the OS to XP-SP3 within the next three months.

Since I do not understand the wireless security aspects, I had requested a friend, more knowledgeable than me, to do the wireless setup. He has done the settings, and a screenshot is attached. He tried to setup the router for WPA, but could not due to unknown reasons.

Please advise how to make the second laptop work in WPA mode.

Thanks,

 

yeah wep is essentially little better than an open wireless network. if at all possible, switch to wpa2-aes. a quick google search revealed that your router supports it with the latest available firmware.

the question is if your laptop supports wpa2. i would assume it does. but we can't say for sure until you post what wireless card your laptop has.

 

SP3 supports WPA2 which is what you want to use. Setup the wireless using WPA2 AES Personal. Use a min of 20 chr using all printable chrs. Strings like this will not be broken any time soon. I use the random password gen on www.grc.com just copy and paste a string. Then just grab a random amount of the chrs copy/paste to the Router PW phrase. Then save to a notepad so you can transfer the key to the NB. Trying to type the giberish is a bad crash.

 

Thanks for your replies.

jasperjones, My wireless card is a Broadcom 802.11b/g.

blue68f100, Like I mentioned, will switch to SP3 soon. In the interim, wanted to use the wireless connectivity in SP2 setting. Secunia confirms, my OS is fully patched. I did some googling, and found links to MS kbs 893357 & 917021 ... is it necessary to install both these patches, before SP2 becomes WPA-compliant? I am not technical, so don't understand all aspects.
You also said " Setup the wireless using WPA2 AES Personal". What exactly do I have to do?

Thanks again.

 

Don't worry about the wireless card, I would just assume it will work. (It's impossible to know for sure without having the exact model number of your Broadcom card.)

As for the issue brought up by blue68f100: your approach is fine. Of course, SP3 will include the patches necessary for WPA2. But, most likely, MS released these some time prior to SP3 along with some KB articles. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you if the two KBs you found are the right ones.