[SOLVED] Help me to decide which router to buy ?

[WrongRookie]

I'm in a line torn between either Asus RT AX82U or Asus Tuf Gaming AX5400. Can anyone give advice on which of these routers is better?

 

[WrongRookie]

As long as you have ANY older WIFI devices, you will have to have WPA2 enabled. Unless you do something that would cause someone to sit and capture your WIFI traffic long enough to be able to crack it, you have little to worry about.

So I can't have wpa3 but have older devices connect to the wifi6 router?

 

[kanewolf]

So I can't have wpa3 but have older devices connect to the wifi6 router?

You can. But you will have to have WPA2 & WPA3 enabled on the SSID (assuming you want older devices to be able to connect). Most of the WPA3 WIFI devices have a "transition" capability which allows WPA2 and WPA3 to be used on the same SSID. Newer devices use WPA3 and older devices use WPA2. A requirement of WPA3, that would be enabled in the "transition" mode is protected management frames (PMF). This was an optional feature on WPA2 that is required on WPA3. MANY older devices won't work with PMF enabled. I have WIFI6 hardware and don't have WPA3 enabled because of the problems with older devices.

 

[bill001g]

It is mostly theoretical that there is a security exposure in wpa2. Computers have gotten more powerful over the years so of course it takes less time to crack but it is still not something someone other than maybe a government agency might do. In some ways I think this is purely a scare tactic to get people to buy new equipment.

What is so surprising is they leave garbage like WPS enabled on many routers and that you can now crack with a cellphone app. Then again WPA3 does not allow WPS so that will break all the silly lightbulbs and other devices that only have a push button to configure wifi.

 

[WrongRookie]

You can. But you will have to have WPA2 & WPA3 enabled on the SSID (assuming you want older devices to be able to connect). Most of the WPA3 WIFI devices have a "transition" capability which allows WPA2 and WPA3 to be used on the same SSID. Newer devices use WPA3 and older devices use WPA2. A requirement of WPA3, that would be enabled in the "transition" mode is protected management frames (PMF). This was an optional feature on WPA2 that is required on WPA3. MANY older devices won't work with PMF enabled. I have WIFI6 hardware and don't have WPA3 enabled because of the problems with older devices.

Ok so does this router Asus RT-AX53U do this transitioning or enable Wpa3 and 2? I'm looking it up and the reviews so far don't mention this.

 

[bill001g]

If I remember correctly any wifi6 device must support wpa3 to be certified.

Because it also support older wifi protocols it also must support wpa2.

I would not worry about this too much. Although they like to talk about how secure wpa3 is they have already found a number of exploits that be done. It is just a different type of attack.

This is mostly a non issue. Business do not use simple pre-shared keys they run the wifi in enterprise mode and use a radius server to do the security. Every user has their own Id and password. This is mostly a home use issue but you then look at why would someone attempt to hack a home user network. You would have to park your van out in front of the house for days to get enough information and almost have to have a super computer in the van. Even after all the effort what do you get. Free internet ?
Capturing the end user data itself makes no difference. Almost all data is encrypted a second time using HTTPS since the much larger threat to your data is not some wifi hacker it is the government or some other entity intercepting the data as it flow over the internet.