One consideration of the wireless network is security. Some of the main technologies to prevent attackers from home network are as following:
1.
WEP
WEP is short for the Wired Equivalent Privacy and refers to a security protocol for WLAN defined
in the 802.11b standards. It is designed to provide the same level of security similar to that
provided by the physical security inherent in a wired LAN. WEP aims to provide security by
encrypting data over radio waves so that it is protected as it is transmitted from one end point to
another.
Since WEP was an early encryption technique to secure Wireless connection, some of its
weakness has been identified. It was then superseded by Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and
802.11i (also know as WPA2) for better security. In spite of its weakness, WEP is capable of a
level of security to prevent casual snooping. WEP is usually presented as the first security choice
in most installation instructions.
2.
WPA
WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), based on the IEEE802.11i draft 3, is wireless security greater
protection than WEP. WPA serves as an intermediate solution between WEP and 802.11i
networks, and has backward compatible WEP supports for older devices. WPA adds authentication to WEP’s basic encryption. It operates in either WPA- PSK mode (akaPersonal mode) or WPA-802.1x mode (aka Enterprise mode). The Personal mode uses a
pre-shared key (PSK) for authentication with less security since every user is given the same
passphrase, while the Enterprise mode uses an IEEE802.11x authentication server for better
security.
WPA uses Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) mechanism. TKIP dynamically changes keys as
the system is used. This is difficult for hackers to read messages so as to improve the security in
the WPA over WEP.
3.
WPA2
WPA2 is the following security protocol to WPA and backward interoperable with WPA. WPA2
operates based on the full IEEE802.11i specification.
WPA2 provides support for all of the mechanisms available in WPA. Both offer a high level of
assurance for end-users and network administrators that their data will remain private and access
to their network restricted to authorized users. Both have the Personal and Enterprise mode of
operation for the authentication.
Compared with WPA, the enhanced WPA2 uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in addition
to TKIP. This provides a stronger encryption mechanism.
