Conclusion: All Vendors Must Get Along!

Conclusion: All Vendors
Must Get Along!

Wireless networking has truly become part of the corporate infrastructure.
In almost every application or business unit, wireless networking
has become integral to what we do and how we work.
The biggest problem involves security and how we must maintain a
level of heightened security despite the obvious flaws and problems with
802.11 and its deployment. Realizing that WLANs will never truly have
privacy factors equivalent to those of any wired network, knowing how
each hardware vendor can use simple features that enable encryption,
screen out unwanted stations, and support security in any form are
more protection than having nothing!

Even spammers have taken advantage of the flaws prevalent in wireless
networking. Hackers now “drive by” unprotected WLANs in the parking lots of many companies, use their internal SMTP outgoing mail
server, send thousands of spam e-mails (clogging up mail servers), and
then simply drive away.

Most companies have WLAN equipment serving a variety of different
hardware and software platforms, but the universal factor in all these
implementations is that you can enable security that restricts who can
easily access your wireless network. You can minimally prevent users
from breaching your network by keeping a log of every machine that has
access to your system. If you know who will access your system, what
computer OS will use your WLAN, and the unique MAC identifier
addresses of each wireless network interface card that will log into your
network�"then you have the basic tools to protect your cross-platform
WLAN and prevent security breaches from destroying the validity and
functionality of your wireless networking infrastructure.217