Cisco Wireless LAN Security

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Summary: Wireless means radio, and anyone can listen
Review: Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have become quite commonplace. From McDonalds, to coffee shops, to airports people are opening up their notebooks and connecting to the world. With this growth these WLANs become targets for hackers with malicious intent. This book is intended for network engineers who design, configure, implement, and maintain secure WLANs.

With a WLAN it is importent to remember that Wireless means Radio. Radio means that you are transmitting data over the airways. And if you are transmitting, other people can be receiving. Usually of course the messages you are sending are received by the base station and sent on with no one caring. But there is no way to prevent physical access to signals being broadcast. The network administrator should recognize that there is no way to prevent someone from listening to your signals, and that such listening will be undetectable.

The basic 802.11 standard defines certain basic authentication and privacy methods, in fact there is a whole chapter in this book on just that subject. The security system being implemented will need to build on these basic rules by implementing various defensive systems. All of these are exhaustively discussed in this book in a clear and understandable manner.