ABSTRACT

The rapid growth and deployment of these systems into a wide range of networks and for a wide variety of applications drives the need to support security solutions that meet the requirements of a wide variety of customers. In this paper attention has been focused on the security aspects of existing Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) wireless LAN systems. This paper will present a brief overview of the wireless protocols and technology, and then look at what’s required to secure own wireless network to keep unauthorized users out of network. Wireless security can be broken into two parts: Authentication and Encryption. Authentication mechanisms can be used to identify a wireless client to an access point and vice-versa, while Encryption mechanisms ensure that it is not possible to intercept and decode data. For many years, MAC access control lists have been used for authentication, and 802.11 WEP has been used for encryption. Lastly, security precautions will be examined.

Key-Words: LAN, WPAN, WMAN, WEP.