Cross-platform Wireless Security Concerns

Cross-platform Wireless
Security Concerns

Wireless networking support was added as a core offering within the
Windows XP Operating System. As 802.11 has seen enormous growth in
many wireless network deployments, it is actually the lack of a WEP key management protocol that causes the primary limitation in its security,
especially with respect to building a secure wireless infrastructure
using access points as an interface to your wired LAN.

When you use manually configured shared keys, they often remain
in place for extended periods of time. The longer they remain, the
greater the chance that hackers can employ specific attack patterns to
acquire your keys and decipher your network traffic. Security can also
be compromised when you lack both authentication and encryption
services, as this affects your wireless operations when an ad hoc or
peer-to-peer wireless network uses wireless collaboration tools. This
tends to explain why it is so crucial to have both authentication and
encryption in your WLAN. Access control is one of the more important
elements of security that incorporates the key management protocol
within the 802.11 specification.