necessary to protect windows shared folder over wireless network?

[her34]

i have a few computers all networked to same router through wifi. the network uses wpa security with a long random password.

i will be using windows to share folders between the computers. for security, i don't care about limiting access from the authorized computers, i only care about intruders/neigbors/etc.

since the wifi is password protected, is it necessary to setup passwords for the shared folders? are there any security concerns with not using a password?

 

[zerogear]

If it is using WPA (TKIP or AES), then it should be fine unless you have a really weak key, which isn't the case.

Password protecting for shared folders is really only useful if you want to protect the information from being accessed from within the LAN.