Wireless LANs
§ IEEE ratified 802.11 in 1997- Also known as Wi-Fi.
§ Wireless LAN at 1 Mbps & 2 Mbps. -WECA
§ Now Wi-Fi Alliance 802.11 focuses on Layer 1 & Layer 2 of OSI model. ( Physical
layer Data link layer)
802.11 Components
Two pieces of equipment defined:
§ Wireless station A desktop or laptop PC or PDA with a wireless NIC.
§ Access point A bridge between wireless and wired networks Composed of Radio Wired network interface (usually 802.3) Bridging software Aggregates access for multiple wireless stations to wired network.
802.11 safeguards
§ Security Policy & Architecture Design
§ Treat as untrusted LAN
§ Discover unauthorised use
§ Access point audits
§ Station protection
§ Access point location
§ Antenna design
802.11 modes
§ Infrastructure mode
§ Ad-hoc mode
There were 3 basic security for environment wifi :-
1. Authentication : Provide security service to identify consumer identity communicate.
2. Integrity : To be sure message unmodified during transaction between wifi clients and
access point.
3. Confidentiality : To provide privacy are achieved by a network wired.
WEP
WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. This encryption standard was the original encryption standard for wireless. As its name implies, this standard was intended to make wireless networks as secure as wired networks.
WPA
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a software/firmware improvement over WEP. All regular WLAN-equipment that worked with WEP are able to be simply upgraded and no new equipment needs to be bought. WPA is a trimmed-down version of the 80.211i security standard that was developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to replace WEP. The TKIP encryption algorithm was developed for WPA to provide improvements to WEP that could be fielded as firmware upgrades to existing 802.11 devices. The WPA profile also provides optional
For conclusion :
§ WAP is used on small, handheld devices like cell phones for out-of-the-office connectivity
§ Designers created WTLS (Wireless Transport Layer Security) as a method to ensure privacy of the data because it was being broadcast
§ 802.11 does not allow physical control of the transport mechanism
§ Transmission of all network data wirelessly transmits frames to all wireless machines, not just a single client
§ Poor authentication. The SSID is broadcast to anyone listening
§ Flawed implementation of the RC4 encryption algorithm makes even encrypted traffic subject to interception and decryption
§ WEP is used to encrypt wireless communications in an 802.11 environment and S/MIME for email
