Lec 8 - Wireless LAN Security

WEP use to provide comparable confidentiality to a traditional wired network in particular it does not protect users of the network from each other. WEP was supported by Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) in 2003, and then by the full IEEE 802.11i standard (also known as WPA2) We can use Aircrack to hack wirelss.Hence, Aircrack is a set of tools for auditing wireless networks.

Wireless LANs

* IEEE ratified 802.11 in 1997- Also known as Wi-Fi.
* Wireless LAN at 1 Mbps & 2 Mbps. -WECA (Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance) promoted Interoperability.
* Now Wi-Fi Alliance 802.11 focuses on Layer 1 & Layer 2 of OSI model. -Physical layer Data link layer

802.11 Components

Two pieces of equipment defined:

* Wireless station A desktop or laptop PC or PDA with a wireless NIC.
* Access point A bridge between wireless and wired networks Composed of Radio Wired network interface (usually 802.3) Bridging software Aggregates access for multiple wireless stations to wired network.

802.11 modes

* Infrastructure mode
* Ad-hoc mode

There were 3 basic security for environment wifi :-

* Authentication – Provide security service to identify consumer identity communicate.
* Integrity – To be sure message unmodified during transaction between wifi clients and access point.
* Confidentiality – To provide privacy are achieved by a network wired.

WEP

* WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. This encryption standard was the original encryption standard for wireless. As its name implies, this standard was intended to make wireless networks as secure as wired networks.

WPA

* Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a software/firmware improvement over WEP. All regular WLAN-equipment that worked with WEP are able to be simply upgraded and no new equipment needs to be bought. WPA is a trimmed-down version of the 80.211i security standard that was developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to replace WEP. The TKIP encryption algorithm was developed for WPA to provide improvements to WEP that could be fielded as firmware upgrades to existing 802.11 devices. The WPA profile also provides optional support for the AES-CCMP algorithm that is the preferred algorithm in 802.11i and WPA2.