Wireless Network Security

This chapter introduces the IEEE 802.11 wireless network standard for wireless local area networks (WLANs), wireless network security vulnerabilities, and common wireless security protocols. The latter includes the wired equivalent privacy (WEP) protocol, the Wi‐Fi protected access (WPA) protocol, WPA2, the IEEE 802.11i protocol, and the IEEE 802.1X authentication protocol. WPA uses a specifically designed integrity check algorithm, called the Michael algorithm, to produce message integrity code (MIC) for preventing forgeries. The chapter also introduces the Bluetooth protocol and the ZigBee protocol for wireless personal area networks (WPANs) and their security mechanisms. Bluetooth is implemented on piconets, which are self‐configured and self‐organized ad hoc wireless networks. Finally, the chapter discusses several security issues in wireless mesh networks (WMNs). Most implementations of mesh networks use two sets of radio frequencies for access points. They typically utilize 802.11b/g for clients and 802.11a to link the access points (APs).