How to Secure a Wireless Network: History can teach us some very important things. Case in point: when cordless phones were first introduced, it was soon realized that anyone with a simple scanner could find the frequency and listen in on conversations that were thought to be private. Fast-forward to our "high-tech" world of today, and you will find that wireless security issues have limited the set up of wireless networks. In this paper on how to secure a wireless network, we'll outline the security techniques used on wireless LANs today, analyze their vulnerabilities, and offer solutions that will be implemented in the future.

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by Scott Gossett, technical marketing engineer, Intel Corp.

History can teach us some very important things. Case in point: when cordless phones were first introduced, it was soon realized that anyone with a simple scanner could find the frequency and listen in on conversations that were thought to be private. Fast-forward to our "high-tech" world of today, and you will find that wireless LAN deployment has been severely hampered by similar security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we'll outline the security techniques used on wireless LANs today, analyze their vulnerabilities, and offer solutions that will be implemented in the future.

Protocol overview
Wireless local area networks have been around since the Allies used radio frequencies in World War II. A WLAN is a confined network that typically exists within a building's walls. Used as an extension of the local network, the WLAN allows users to move about without losing their connection. WLANs were seen as the first step to untethered and truly mobile computing. But before WLANs were widely accepted, there needed to be an industry standard devised to ensure the compatibility and reliability among all manufacturers of the devices. In 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers created the original wireless standard called IEEE 802.11. Later, in September 1999, the IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11b standards were defined at bands of 5.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz, respectively. The two additions also defined new data rates from 11 Mbps with IEEE 802.11b to 54 Mbps with IEEE 802.11a.

In addition to WLANs, there are several other wireless networking protocols. IEEE designed the 802.16 WirelessMAN (metropolitan area network) standard, which complements 802.11, to create a wireless connection from homes and businesses all the way to a core network. A typical 802.16 configuration consists of a base station mounted on a tower or building roof, which connects to subscriber stations at a customer's home or business. A whopping 30 miles may stretch between the subscriber and the base station with no need for direct line-of-sight, thus making city-wide data access a reality. Sometimes called WiMAX, 802.16 wireless broadband technology provides shared data rates up to 70Mbytes, which is enough bandwidth to simultaneously support more than 60 businesses with T1-style connectivity, and hundreds of homes with DSL-speed connectivity using a single sector in a base station.