Is Powerline Networking safe?

I am thinking about buying couple powerline networking adapters. It all sounds good however I am wondering about one particular issue.

Given that this stuf works over the electrical lines, can someone at the power company or someone who access the lines coming to the house access the network? Considering that all these lines are somehow connected, it might be true. I am more worried about the security implications naturally.

Are there encrypted connection adapters?

thanks

yarun can

Posted 2014-12-11T17:07:46.070

Reputation: 800

See http://security.stackexchange.com/q/9725

– Lynn Crumbling – 2014-12-11T17:14:27.360

possible duplicate of How can I secure an Ethernet-over-power network? also see Are powerline ethernet adapters inherently secure?

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-12-11T17:15:38.750

The 'Are powerline Ethernet adapters inherently secure' question seems to have been deleted. – I say Reinstate Monica – 2014-12-11T21:40:25.987

Answers

Most of the adapters do offer encryption, please check the model you are looking at before you purchase it. Also, the signal does fade even over a house distance, you may be able to pick the signal up at the street, but I wouldn't suspect you would be able to go much further than that.

Aboba

Posted 2014-12-11T17:07:46.070

Reputation: 671

It looks like most offer 128bit enc. Do you feel like that is secure though? I think that level of encryption sounds easy to break nowadays? – yarun can – 2014-12-13T23:49:52.863

For a country level agency, maybe. It's more than secure enough to keep common criminals out (at least from that attack vector). – Aboba – 2014-12-14T01:44:39.487

@yaruncan AES-128 (which is what is prescribed by the HomePlug standards these devices generally follow) is still expected to be secure for quite a while. I was going to provide a link, but there are too many good ones returned from googling "is aes 128 secure". – glibdud – 2014-12-16T13:47:29.563