Enhanced Security for Wireless Lans and Wans in the Enterprise: Hands on

5. Summary and Conclusions

Wireless LANs are being rapidly adopted due to the convenience and flexibility they provide. However, WLANs create a new set of security threats to enterprise networks such as Rogue APs, Mis-configured APs, Soft APs, MAC Spoofing, Honeypot APs, DOS, and Ad hoc Networks.

Neither traditional firewalls and VPNs nor IEEE 802.11 security standards such as WEP, WPA, 802. lx, and 802.1 1i can protect enterprise networks against over-the-air attacks from WLANs. So, a new and comprehensive security solution in the form of a WiFi Firewall is required to alleviate these new security threats. The WiFi Firewall must be able to provide RF planning, detection of RF activity, accurate classification of WLAN networks, automatic and reliable prevention from harmful WLAN transmissions, and precision location tracking of WLAN devices.

Now, in many ways, Wireless Wide Area Networks solutions can be integrated into a general purpose remote access solution for the enterprise. Whether they are circuit-switched dialup solutions or packet-data Internet connections, wired and wireless remote access can look the same to the enterprise perimeter.

Finally, they can use the same protocols and remote access products. In fact there is a compelling case for creating unified and simplified approach to remote access. However, there is need to ensure that wireless networks have unique requirements and therefore a traditional and standard solution may not necessarily be optimal.