Wi-Fi Security

Conclusion: The Future of Wireless Networking While this book demonstrates all the security vulnerabilities of your WLAN, it is clear that because there are so many advantages to using a WLAN in your corporate environment, these devices will not disappear any time soon from the ... [full story]

Printer servers offer a great deal of convenience, allowing users from virtually “anywhere” to print to any networked printer in your organization. Unfortunately, a hacker who acquires knowledge of your print server can do damage, like making every printer in your organization print non-stop, ... [full story]

File server network devices are often put on the Internet to share files without the risk of having a hacker break into an internal file server that has mission-critical files. These types of devices usually act as “honeypots” to lure a hacker ... [full story]

Network appliances or devices serving up information on the net without being tied to a specific computer server have become very useful over the last few years. Both file and print servers have become useful because if a hacker breaks into them, they ... [full story]

There are two ways in which to prevent network intrusion attempts on your WLAN (Figure 18.5). 1. Use an automated intrusion detection system that uses a form of fuzzy logic to detect and report any possible hacking type of activity. These types of systems ... [full story]

Lindows OS is really trying hard to take all the best features of Linux and empower its platform to have the ability to run Windows applications. This platform is evolving to support wireless networking capabilities natively. Security will be critical to this operating ... [full story]

Many Linux distributions are evolving to support several 802.11b network cards right out of the box. SuSE and RedHat are examples of two major distributions that support several WLAN NIC cards, most notably the Orinoco WaveLAN card. The driver is built right ... [full story]

Both these mobile computing devices (commonly referred to as PDAs) have evolved to offer limited integrated support for 802.11b or Bluetooth wireless network interface cards. However, like their more powerful computing brothers, they often lack the ability to offer wireless authentication. Most users don’t ... [full story]

Macintosh OS X has fully integrated support for its own Airport card. Airport cards are really 802.11b wireless networking interface cards, fully compatible with other brands of WLANs for the PC or Linux. These cards may have a different name, but they have ... [full story]

Windows XP has already evolved to incorporate Service Pack 1, as of late 2002. The number of security updates and fixes, however, will be a fact of life due to the increasing number of hacker exploits against this operating system. As these types ... [full story]

It seems that all the major operating systems are always being upgraded with new features and functionality, and this is especially true of capabilities dealing with the automatic recognition of wireless networking cards. An operating system has its own series of vulnerabilities that ... [full story]

It seems that all the major operating systems are always being upgraded with new features and functionality, and this is especially true of capabilities dealing with the automatic recognition of wireless networking cards. An operating system has its own series of vulnerabilities that ... [full story]

If a hacker can’t get in the front door by logging into an open wireless network, he will try the back door—attempting to eavesdrop on your wireless network traffic or unencrypted data stream in the hope that your password or other vital information ... [full story]

A good method of keeping unauthorized users out of your network is to use an access control list (ACL) that screens out all attempts to gain access to your network by wireless network interface cards that do not have a preprogrammed, recognized MAC ... [full story]

WLANs are constantly evolving to provide greater bandwidth for multimedia applications and still handle an encrypted data stream without degrading your throughput to the network. The most commonly deployed wireless networking standard today is 802.11b, but we are on the cusp of widespread deployment ... [full story]

As your resources grow, it is important to have a security vulnerability assessment performed periodically as a “checkup” to make certain that your WLAN doesn’t experience any holes in its security that could potentially damage your ability to host a wireless network (Figure ... [full story]

Biometrics Biometrics are a means of making certain that you can prove the user’s identity before he even uses a wireless terminal to connect to your WLAN. Biometric devices make it possible to allow a user access based on some physical attribute (retina scan, ... [full story]

Enhancing Your Wireless Security Security can only improve (Figure 18.3) when: 1. The vendor of the wireless product implements greater safeguards (beyond what the specification has defined) to improve security. 2. The administrator in your company implements all these safeguards (and then some) to lock ... [full story]

Competing Standards Data privacy will always be a concern, regardless of whether you are using 802.11, Bluetooth, or HomeRF. Most cellular phones and wireless laptops can have their information exposed to the world if two steps are not taken to prevent a hacker from ... [full story]

Evolving Standards The evolution of WLAN standards has focused more on increasing the speed of transmission. As growth continues, security will constantly hamper the adoption of WLANs for fear of hackers gaining access. Wireless networks, by definition, are open and subject to attack. It ... [full story]

Denial of Service Attacks When a user logs off the access point, a hacker can potentially pick up the transmission frame in an effort to spoof his or her identity. This essentially “tricks” the access point into thinking that the user has not really ... [full story]

Protecting Access One method that can help you protect your wireless resources is to deploy mandatory mutual authentication that requires that traffic not be sent until the user is authenticated to the server. Unfortunately, most implementations to not offer authentication options, so support will come ... [full story]

WEP Wired equivalent privacy (WEP) represents the “minimal” level of encryption described in the previous section. WEP provides you with a basic level of protection, but unfortunately, there are several weaknesses in this encryption method, all of which are easily exploited by wireless hackers. As ... [full story]

Basic Encryption The 802.11 standard deals primarily with wireless deployments connected to wired networks. The most prominent weakness of 802.11 is that most deployments do not use even the most basic level of encryption. Unencrypted networks invite hackers to eavesdrop on or log into ... [full story]

Evolving Security As Wi-Fi evolves to offer greater levels of functionality, security must evolve even more quickly to combat the new vulnerabilities that continue to plague wireless networks. [full story]

Mobile computing does not simply extend to the wireless laptop or PDA, although most Wi-Fi implementations are set up to communicate to these devices. In fact, wireless mobile computing is already evolving into something much…smaller. Already, we see Wi-Fi being used in high-speed information ... [full story]

Wi-Fi is evolving to the point where it will encompass much more than computers and PDAs; it will involve almost any device enabled to access a network. This means that literally any device could be able to use Wi-Fi. Take ... [full story]

Health Insurance Portability andAccountability Act (HIPPA) [August 21, 1996] Enacted as part of a broad Congressional attempt at incremental healthcare reform. This requires the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to develop standards and requirements for the ... [full story]

Legislates parental consent for use of information about children. This legislation makes it is unlawful for an operator of a Web site or online service directed to children, or any operator who has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal ... [full story]

Designed to promote accuracy, fairness, and privacy of information in the files of every “consumer reporting agency” (CRA). Most CRAs are credit bureaus that gather and sell information about consumers; for example bills are paid on time or if an ... [full story]

Protects the privacy of personal nonpublic information shared by financial institutions with third parties. GLB core privacy provisions address financial institution disclosure policies regarding consumer information, consumer “opt-out rights,” enforcement mechanisms, timing for implementation of regulations promulgated pursuant to GLB, ... [full story]

Mandates the establishment of due-diligence mechanisms to detect and report money laundering transactions. This establishes new privileges of law enforcement and U.S. special services to intercept and obstruct terrorism. Among many other provisions, the Act mandates the establishment of due-diligence ... [full story]