Mac Address Filter

How can I enable mac address filter on my airport extreme?

Very carefully, with a lot time and patience. Frankly, this is not easy, and many users become frustrated and lost when they try this. Having an Apple Support person on the phone to work this through might be the best way to approach the project.

Please understand that this will only work on devices that connect to your network using wireless. It will not work with wired connections.

The first task for you to perform is to gather all of the WiFi MAC Addresses that you will need for all of the devices that you will be controlling on your network.

On Apple devices......Macs, iPhones and iPads.....the MAC Address is called the WiFi Address.

On other products, it might be called the MAC Address, or Hardware Address.

We're not sure whether we should assume that you know how to find the MAC Addresses that you need, so you'll need to let us know on that. We can help on Macs, iPhones and iPads, but not so much on other devices. It may take some trial and error....and a lot of patience....to find the right information for non-Apple devices.

Next, we don't know whether you will be setting up the controls on a Mac, a PC, or another device. A Mac running the current Sierra operating system, or another previous operating system will be easiest to work with. Let us know what you will be using.

Finally.....Address Control has not proven to be all that reliable, so there will be no guarantees on your results.

And another question, what about my tv's, for Directv on demand and Amazon video? Can I allow those devices as well?

Yes, if you can figure out what their wireless MAC Address might be. Some devices have two MAC Addresses.....one for wireless, and another for a wired Ethernet connection. You will need the wireless MAC Address.

Maybe I should just leave well enough alone, and just make sure my passwords are complex and changed often.

Might be a great idea. Any half way decent hacker can "clone" a MAC Address really quickly and easily, so MAC control is not considered to be "secure" at all.

joannefromarizona wrote:

Hi Bob,

Maybe I should just leave well enough alone, and just make sure my passwords are complex and changed often.

Yes that is the best option.

MAC address filtering is worthless for security. Your devices constantly transmit their MAC address. Anyone in range of your devices can see that & spoof those MAC addresses - that is a trivial process. They can pretend to be your device, if you have no password on the WiFi they could also connect to the network by MAC address spoofing.

Strong passwords with good (modern WPA2) encryption offer far more protection. MAC filtering simply adds lots of complexity to the setup with no benefit.

Also change the name of the network to one that is not popular - due to how the encryption is performed the network name is used in many cracking attempts, changing that resets time invested by an attacker. Frankly that is probably overkill for most people but it is far better for you to understand what is important if you are trying to invest time to improve security otherwise you waste time collecting MAC addresses with no benefit.

Most users use the Timed Access settings in AirPort Utility.....which is where the MAC Addresses are used.....to set up "rules" for wireless devices that only allows the devices to connect at times that you specify.

For example, you might set up a "rule" for Junior's iPad that only allows that device to connect to the wireless network between 7 PM and 10 PM each weekday and between 10 AM and 11 PM on weekends. The iPad would not be able to connect to the network at any other times, so you don't have to worry about Junior blasting away on the Internet at 2 AM.

At the same time, you might set up your Mac for access at all times.