Wireless Security

Wireless Security

Abstract

The advent of Information and Communications Technology has brought a lot of changes in today 's modern world . Many technologies are available in the market today that brings improvement in almost all aspects of development . One of these technologies is the establishment of a network

A network is , basically , consists of computers or node connected together to share resources . One network can interconnect another network either through wired or wireless communication paths . A network should have these four things - HUB to perform traffic control , CABLE which

is used to connect all medium , Network Interface Card (NIC ) which is plugged into the computer to be able to send and receive messages and PROTOCOL which is the language used to communicate among nodes in the network (Jelen , 2003

In a network , processes may institute a session to exchange information . There are different ways to connect processes to communicate over the network . One common scheme is circuit switching which establishes a permanent physical link between computers . This link is allocated for the entire duration of the communication . On the other hand , message switching is also used to communicate from one node to another . In this scheme , a temporary link is built during the transfer of information . Another scheme used is packet switching which divides the message into a number of packets and each packet is sent to its destination separately (Silberschatz Galvin , 1998 p489

Introduction

Wireless LAN is experiencing tremendous change in today 's modern world since there is an increase in bandwidth provided by IEEE 802 .11 standard . The table below shows the characteristics of WLAN technology

Table 1 : Key Characteristics of WLAN

Characteristics

Physical Layer Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS , Frequency Hoping Spread Spectrum (FHSS , Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM , Infrared (IR

Frequency Band 2 .4 GHz (ISM band ) and 5 GHz

Data Rates 1 Mbps , 2 Mbps , 5 .5 Mbps , 11 Mbps , 54 Mbps

Data and Network Security RC4-based stream encryption algorithm for confidentiality , authentication and integrity . Limited Key management

Operating Range Up to 150 feet indoors and 1500 feet outdoors

Positive Aspects Ethernet speeds without wires many different products from many different companies . Wireless client cards and access point costs are decreasing

Negative Aspects Poor security in Native mode throughput decrease with distance and load (Karygiannis Owens , 2002 , p24

Wireless Network Diagram Figure 1 : Wireless Network Diagram

The above figure shows the diagram of a wireless network . This involves the use of wireless router which must possess a working network adapter A broadband modem which is connected to the wireless router enables the sharing of a high-speed internet connection . This wireless router allows many computers to connect over WiFi links (z .about .com /1 /7 /g /3 /wireless-diagram-1 .jpg

Security Threats and Issues

The figure below shows the taxonomy of security attacks in WLAN

Figure 2 : Taxonomy of Wireless Attacks (Karygiannis Owens , 2002 , p24

Network Security attacks are divided into two attacks - passive and active . Passive attacks happen when an unauthorized party gains full access...