Wireless security - Essay Example

Wireless Security: An Overview As we move ahead into the 21st century , the wireless medium of communication and connection is becoming the preferredchoice for everyone who use technology. Along with many users moving to the wireless medium , the development and growth of the technology being employed is exponential. It has reached a point where the user can communicate, connect and perform his desired action from anywhere employing the use of wireless technology for example Wi-Fi,Wi-Max etc. The main usage today of wireless technology is for the usage of internet so much that both have become interoperable.

The activities performed by user on the internet can be both casual and confidential in nature. None the less for any of the activities performed over the internet every user wants privacy and security. Security of the connection ensures the integrity and originality of the data and assures the user that his information is safe. Wireless connection employ the use of radiowaves for communication and flow of data between the devices. These radiowaves can easily be tapped, intercepted and the information can be read or stolen and even in some case altered and manipulated hence raising the concern of data integrity and originality.

Facing the threats that came with the increasing and rapid growth in the number of users of wireless technology the requirements for development of measures for security and integrity of data and network also arose. Although number of people were lazy and most of them were unaware of the security threats they faced using wireless form of connections, such people were only concerned about the availability of the internet and were satisfied as long as they were able to operate the internet. Now to ensure security while using wireless connections various forms of security were developed which included WEP,WAP and WAP2 etc.

WEP - Wired Equivalent Privacy (or Wireless Encryption Protocol), was introduced as the first line of security to tackle the threats that were occurring. It was a weak option for security as it only had encryption to a basic level. After the passage of time a lot of weaknesses were found in it and did not remain as secure as it was thought earlier. It did not provide end to end protection as it only used at the two lowest layers of OSI. Later on it was found out that it didn’t protect packets from being intercepted and any hacker could get enough stream of packets which would be enough for him to extract the encryption scheme.

After significant flaws were found in WEP another technology WPA - ( Wi-Fi Protected Access ) was introduced. Many of the problems that remained undetected by WEP were addressed by this new WPA technology. It offers a more stronger encryption methodology. But it requires all of the devices to be WPA enabled to operate else the device which is not enabled will fall back on the lesser secure WEP module. In WPA you use a simple English paraphrase between 8 to 63 characters long and using a technology called TKIP for each wireless client a unique encryption key is generated.

Ultimately it is many times better and more secure than WEP.WPA2™ (Wi-Fi Protected Access® 2) is even a more secure technology introduced after WPA which allows the network administrators the guarantee and assurance that network can only be accessed by such personnel who have special permission to access it. It provide security which employees use of algorithms such as National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) FIPS 140-2 compliant AES encryption algorithm. Hence making it even a more secure technology.

Works CitedBetween, T. D. (n.d.). Differences Between. Retrieved from http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-wep-and-wpa/Boncella, R. J. (n.d.). WIRELESS SECURITY: AN OVERVIEW. Retrieved from Washburn university: http://www.washburn.edu/faculty/boncella/WIRELESS-SECURITY.pdfWebopedia. (n.d.). The Difference between WEP and WAP. Retrieved from Webopedia: http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Computer_Science/2007/WEP_WPA_wireless_security.asp