Chapter VI: Wireless Information Security

Clifton Poole
National Defense University, USA      

Introduction

The proliferation of wireless local area networks in the enterprise and home domains has increased dramatically within the past several years as the 802.11b protocol has emerged as the standard of choice for wireless communication (Al-Saleh, 2002). A host of wireless networking products is now available to complete your home or enterprise wireless network. Since 2001, the product selection for the home user has multiplied ten-fold since that time. There are entire sections of the consumer electronics dedicated to the sale of products for the small office/home office (SOHO).

Many corporations are now using wireless LANs as their preferred access methods within their facilities because of the solutions ease of installation, reduced maintenance with moves and changes, and flexibility of deployment (Al-Saleh, 2002). Changing a network using wireless technology requires fewer modifications to the physical environment. By using wireless devices to build a network, a forklift upgrade ” an upgrade to a computer network or other electronic system that requires a massive hardware investment ” is greatly reduced. Wireless LANs also allow a user with a laptop the freedom to roam about his or her enterprise and still maintain access to the Internet and the rest of the network. The wireless solution is more elegant than running Ethernet when the computers are far apart from each other and users are still required to have access.

Private and open wireless LAN (WLAN) are the two types of networks available to the wireless user. Most WLANs are visible to users and require varying degrees of authentication to gain access. Private WLANs are usually associated with large enterprises and have a configuration that requires users to authenticate onto the network. A shared key authentication model allows users access and limits the number of connections for the enterprise. Many SOHO implementations are moving to this model because it affords them a higher level of assurance of their data. The open system authentication model requires no authentication to gain access to the network. The network owner is allowing any user in range of the signal to connect to the network available resources. In most cases that is as simple as a high bandwidth connection to the Internet. There are many networks that unknowingly give users access to shared resources because access points are improperly configured or managed.

The sheer volume of products and terms makes it difficult to understand what wireless is and how it will change your view of networking. This chapter highlights the characteristics, complexities and culture surrounding the 802.11b protocol. Here are a few wireless terms explaining how WLAN operates, some unusual and future practices in WLAN, and WLAN vulnerabilities and WLAN security strategies.