Eleventh Hour Security+

Wireless Security Standards

The IEEE 802.11 standard covers the communication between WLAN components. RF poses challenges to privacy in that it travels through and around physical objects. Because of the nature of the 802.11 wireless LANs, the IEEE working group initially implemented a mechanism to protect the privacy of the individual transmissions, known as the WEP protocol. WEP, however, was never intended to be the absolute authority in wireless security and quickly became an example of how not to design a cryptographic security protocol. The IEEE 802.11 standard stated that WEP should provide for the same amount of protection as a wired network. However, this provides only a basic level of privacy and it was quickly determined that WEP ...