RECOMMENDATIONS FOR WIRELESS NETWORK SECURITY POLICY

Introduction
One of the newer technologies being increasingly used in today's business is that of wireless networks. While this technology has the advantages of providing greater user mobility and temporary access, it does have the disadvantage of an intrinsic lack of security.

SECURITY THREATS
There are a number of types of attack that wireless LANs are vulnerable to, based on different aspects of their operation and configuration. These include. i. Broadcast medium
Wireless is a broadcast medium, where there is no way to control where the information is sent and who therefore has access to it. If an access point is set up and used in its default
Configuration, then the user of such a system is vulnerable to attack, because anyone running sniffer software can see and capture everything that a user does across that network... ii. WEP Vulnerabilities.
There were two problems with the original WEP encryption system.
Firstly, the shared key system requires the use of the WEP key to verify a user attempting to connect to the wireless network. The second was the actual implementation of the encryption system itself. iii. Denial of Service
This type of attack can be perpetrated by a jamming attack which can be either intentional attack which is one in which the attacker broadcasts a very high-power signal at the same frequency that the wireless network is operating on, causing interference to the network or unintentional attack which exploits the lack of verification of control frames in the wireless network iv. Injection of traffic
A new tool has been released which allows a malicious user to inject or insert traffic at the application layer. The potential for misuse of this tool is great: the example used had pornographic images being displayed on the screen of wireless users. v. Rogue Access Points
These are access points that are set up using the MAC address and SSID of a valid AP. An attacker would firstly use a DoS attack against the wireless client to force it to dissociate from the valid AP.

THE SOLUTIONS
The security options available to protect the wireless network form the various types of measures listed above will be classified into two groups: data security, and user authentication 1. Data security.
Data security addresses the problems with wireless networks that relate to encryption and protection of data on the network. These include WEP with centralized encryption key servers, temporal key integrity protocol,
Advanced encryption standard and virtual private networks. a. WEP key servers.
These are centralized key encryption server makes it possible to have the key changed regularly, thereby reducing or eliminating some of the risks of using the WEP system. Keys can be changed on a per packet, or per session basis. b. Virtual private networks (VPN)
VPNs have long been used in a wired environment, usually to protect remote users dialling into a corporateserver. The added security of having all traffic pass through an encrypted tunnel makes provide access to the corporate network, a viable option c. Temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP)
The use of this meant that the installation of additional servers to manage the task of key rotation became unnecessary. It also means that it is an extremely difficult task for an attacker to crack or derive the key. d. AES/CCMP
This increases the security of wireless networks by incorporating additional features of the IEEE 802.11i security protocol. The AES/CCMP encryption system is generally acknowledged to be virtually unbreakable. 2. User authentication.
These are means of verifying and establishing the identity of both client and access point, for the purposes of creating and/or maintaining a valid connection. a. MAC address filtering and SSID masking
MAC address filtering involves entering a list of MAC addresses, which are unique to every network device, into the AP, or to a server this means that only users with a MAC address on this list can connect to the network. b. Radius
This is a system of authentication which has been used for many years with wired systems.
It is a service which can run on an existing server, or a dedicated server depending on user load. c. 802.1x and EAP
The IEEE802.1x authentication system is a means for authenticating and controlling user access to a protected network, as well as dynamically varying encryption keys. 802.1X works in conjunction with an extensible authentication protocol (EAP) to both the wired and wireless LAN media.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A WIRELESS SECURITY POLICY
Home
The greatest danger to a home user is that of theft: leaving an AP open can allow someone to steal their internet bandwidth.
Small Business
In addition to bandwidth theft, small users such as real estate agents, medical professionals and small retailers are exposing themselves to a potentially greater risk. If the signal from an AP that this type of business has setup is accessible from a distance, then their data is not secure.
Enterprise
Large organizations are less likely to have bandwidth stolen because they usually have the infrastructure in place to ensure that users are authenticated before being allowed access to the internet. Authenticating to a RADIUS or proxy server to gain access to network resources would normally be in place as part of their wired network, and this can be extended to cover the WLAN. What larger organizations are at greater risk of is people stealing their data.