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Since wireless networking devices transmit information through radio waves, it is imperative that you protect your information
by configuring your security settings. There are three main components that,
when used together, can protect your wireless network:
The following can help to achieve maximum security for your wireless network:
The IEEE 802.1x standard provides a general authentication framework for 802
LANs and specifies an extensible authentication protocol (EAP) to enable LAN
transport for many different types of authentication protocols.
To protect client traffic, the 802.11 standard defines Wireless Encryption
Privacy (WEP) with fixed encryption keys (and three optional key lengths). The
use of fixed keys has made it easy to mount several types of attack against WEP.
You can prevent unauthorized reception of your wireless data using the IEEE
802.11 Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). The standard includes two levels of
security, using a 64-bit key (sometimes referred to as 40-bit) or a 128-bit key.
For better security, use a 128-bit key. If you use encryption, all wireless
devices on your WLAN must use the same encryption settings.
Refer to Setting up WEP Encryption for more information.
A WAN client initiates an authorization request to the access point, which
authenticates the client to an Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)
compliant RADIUS server. This RADIUS server may authenticate either the user
(via passwords) or the machine (by MAC address).
Software based IPSEC transport security.
Uses an encryption method called fast-packet rekeying, that changes the
encryption keys frequency.
The following VPN client software is supported by PROSet. Refer to Virtual
Private Network (VPN) for more information.
802.11a and 802.11b can be augmented with VPN security to protect TCP/IP
based services. Security Overview
Wireless Security
Security Guidelines
Protecting Your Network
Authentication Types
Encryption Keys
WEP Encryption
802.1x
IPSEC
TKIP (Temporal key Integrity Protocol)
Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
Copyright (c) 2003 Intel Corporation.