Wireless security beyond WEP and WPA
This book is about Wireless security beyond WEP and WPA.
Much as already been said about the use of WEP and WPA in securing wireless networks, and their weaknesses are already well-known. Less has been written about other measures and devices that network administrators may adopt to secure their wireless network, such as disabling SSID broadcasting or carefully calculating the location of access point antennas. This paper attempts to outline several such measures but makes no conclusions as to which should be used, because each wireless network operates within its own environment and what works for one will break another. Instead, at the end of this paper, the reader will hopefully be aware of the pros and cons of each measure and device and will be able to decide for himself or herself which ones would provide additional security to their wireless network.
Securing wireless networks
Ever since 2001, the use of wireless networks has exploded both in home and corporate environments. By 2006, more than 80 millions wireless local area network (WLAN) nodes should be in the hands of residential and business users combined1. Securing WLANs has been a concern almost since their inception and while much progress has been made with the introduction of WEP and WPA, both have been shown to have their own weaknesses or implementation issues. While 802.11i is said to improve upon WEP and WPA, it is not yet commercially available and it may prove over time to have its own weaknesses as well. There are steps that network administrators and home users alike may take to augment the security of their wireless networks, and discussing some of these steps is the purpose of this paper. None of these steps is intended as a replacement to WEP or WPA, but rather as a complement. Many of these steps do not apply to public hot spots, however, as it is generally the intent of the spot’s owner or operator to make access as easy and convenient as possible.
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