Week 8 It242 Checkpoint Wlan

WEEK 8 IT 242 CHECK POINT WLAN

With today’s demand of connecting computers together through the use of wireless network technology, the demand for security to protect these networks from unauthorized access has also risen. There are two common types of security for wireless. One is using a form of encryption and the other, though it is less effective, is using a MAC address filtering system.

Encryptions are considered one of the best types of security available to a wireless network. A key is used to encrypt and decrypt the messages or traffic between the computer and the access point. The only downside to using encryption would be that if the key is not strong enough. Someone who would be monitoring or sniffing the traffic could possible decipher this key. Therefore WPA2 is the most highly recommended form of encryption to be used by a wireless network because it is a stronger type of encryption and even harder yet to decipher.

The MAC address filtering system is a unique identifier that is encoded on every NIC created. The point trying to be made is the fact that no two NIC adapters would have the same MAC address. This filtering system works by allowing only specific MAC address to connect to the access point. Anyone that didn’t have a MAC address on this particular list would be denied access. The big downfall with this system is the fact that anyone who would be sniffing the traffic could spoof a MAC address and pose as a valid machine, which in turn would allow this person to gain access to they network system.

The consequences of an unauthorized person gaining access to a wireless network system would not be good especially if malicious intentions were what they had in mind. This person would be capable of accessing all the resources of the network and possibly be able to view all the traffic intended for other computers. To keep this from happening, it is extremely important to use various types of techniques to secure your wireless network...