Bringing my own router to work - idea validation

RouterOS General
1

Hello!

I trying to validate an idea.

I want to have some protection while at work. Protection here is primarily minimising the chances of it people to look at my data. Naturally, my computer (I bring my own to work) is forcing https on all sites and I tunnel my traffic via WireGuard to my home or protonVPN.

In any case, I was thinking it could be a nice idea to have my own ap in the network. I was thinking just plugging it in on an available Ethernet port, register the mac with the it guys for it to get an ip address and presto.

I was thinking using some hap variant, bridging all Ethernet’s and allowing wan to get ip via dhcp. This is pretty standard out of the box config.

I was also thinking to have two wireless interfaces. One would send traffic via wire guard to my home and the other through protonvpn and the other directly through the local network at work.

Does this make sense or am I being an idiot?

Cheers

2

First thing to do is check with the department or persons responsible for both IT and security to ensure that its within the rules of the company.

3

Yes of course. That goes without saying.

I am just thinking in terms of “does it make sense”

4

Yes, why not?
Sounds like you know what you’re doing, so you should be able to decide whether it’s going to be worthwhile for yourself

5

Well is the office Wi-Fi crappy? Then it make sense.

If your need is “security”, I guess an extra router add additional layer beyond whatever your laptop’s default firewall is doing. Just seems like marginal benefit, since I suspect you may also use your laptop on other WI-Fi networks too - so likely best to focus on laptop’s security IMO.

And…adding a router on top of existing LAN is going to create a double-NAT… For regular web things, this is not an issue. But since your using WG on your laptop to home, you’re home need to have public IP.

6

There was a similar post some time ago and that op posted more details: http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/site-to-site-vpn-within-strange-network/175089/4

Ignoring the exact use-case, I have used a mAp lite myself when traveling to ‘bridge’ hotel wifi networks for my laptop and/or phone. I guess that’s similar as what you are planning to do.