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This article investigates the security problems in the 802.11-based data link protocol, Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP). It is evident that anyone with a radio receiver can eavesdrop on a wireless local area network (WLAN), and therefore widely acknowledged that a WLAN needs a mechanism to counter this threat. The IEEE 802.11 standard defines a data confidentiality mechanism known as WEP. The security goal of WEP is data confidentiality equivalent to that of a wired LAN. WEP falls short of this objective, which is an intuitively appealing but vague security goal. As a consequence, WEP was insufficiently thought through, and numerous flaws quickly appeared. The discovery of shortcomings led to a process to replace WEP by more robust security protocols. The study of WEP flaws illustrates the difficulties in security protocol design. An understanding of these flaws helps clarify the choices made by the designers of the new protocols. WEP has several serious inherent problems. It does not meet its fundamental goals of wired-equivalent confidentiality.

This article reports that Business Communications Review has awarded Aruba's wireless local area network (WLAN) system as Best-in-Test for delivering the most comprehensive suite of capabilities and highest performance of any enterprise-class WLAN system, as of December 2004. The evaluation, conducted by independent testing center Miercom, tested a wide range of wireless and security capabilities including configuration, security, management, administration and performance against products from Aruba, Bluesocket, Chantry and Meru. For security, Miercom ran through a battery of tests that addressed five key areas: authentication of wireless users; strong encryption of wireless LAN traffic; defending the network from wireless security threats; detecting, monitoring and locating unauthorized rogue APs; disabling rogue APs through containment or mitigation capabilities. Aruba took the top prize delivering the highest throughput for encrypted and unencrypted traffic while exhibiting the lowest delays and packet loss. Aruba also showed the best inter-switch failover times, an essential requirement for enterprise wireless deployments. Finally, Aruba's management and administration capabilities were viewed among the strongest. Reviewers noted strong features and functionality including graphical planning, auto-configuration tools for APs and RF calibration, simple network management protocol support and very good integral reports.

Safety and security of Wi-Fi wireless local area network technology is a question that security analysts, industry executives, and information technology experts continue to debate as the technology begins to work its way into the enterprise environment. There have been vast improvements to WEP, the first edition of a security protocol that turned out to be a security failure. Then came WPA, which is considered secure for corporations and a strong foundation to the next version of security functions in 802.11i. WPA and WPA2 extend the encryption technology to 802.11i and Advanced Encryption System key support. This allows more cryptographically secure data and mirrors the security standards used by the United States government.

The article focuses on the 802.1X protocol, a simple standard with enormous utility in the U.S. It is built for wired networks, then extended to wireless, it provides network-access controls by ensuring appropriate credentials are received. The protocol allows users to limit in their access to network resources based on their roles and the security posture of the end user device. Security appliances that support the protocol use it to make informed network-access decisions. These devices rely heavily on the negotiation infrastructure to validate credentials and perform more process intensive operations. Leaders in the field include Cisco, Microsoft and the Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Network Connect.

Discusses ways to secure wireless local area networks through a virtual private network and data encryption. Information on wireless protected access; Use of the industry standard Internet Protocol security; Significance of policy based security solution.