{"id":549455,"date":"2006-07-07T18:47:45","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T18:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/549455-securing-the-wlan.html"},"modified":"2006-07-07T18:47:45","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T18:47:45","slug":"securing-the-wlan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/549455-securing-the-wlan.html","title":{"rendered":"Securing the WLAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organisations are starting to experience the tangible benefits of wireless LANs (WLANs), from increased worker productivity to cost efficiencies. WLANs make it possible to reconcile the need for the best, most intuitive communications solution with the need to drive down costs, he says.<\/font> <\/p>\n

But to make advanced WLAN applications a reality, it is essential that organisations ensure that users are able to easily connect to the wireless network. And it is even more crucial that this is done in a secure manner. Effective security in enterprise WLAN solutions will prove vital when it comes to enabling next-generation communications to reach their full potential.<\/font> <\/p>\n

While many WLAN solutions offer security features, all too often they lack the granular level of security that is needed to ensure that wireless communications match the organisation\u2019s aspirations. <\/font><\/p>\n

As end-users now increasingly expect to enjoy the benefits of high-speed wireless connectivity, organisations need to ensure that their WLAN is fully compliant with the latest security standards. Key among these is WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2), a data encryption method for WLANs ratified by the IEEE as the official 802.11i standard.<\/font> <\/p>\n

All WLAN solutions are not the same<\/strong> <\/font><\/p>\n

Better security translates directly into a better ability to deal with potential wireless attacks. A secure system will direct and deal with radio frequency jamming issues automatically, by either adjusting the transmission power, or by changing the channel to isolate the jamming signal.<\/font> <\/p>\n

And as first-generation Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) encryption is now recognised as having security flaws, WLANs should be able to be configured to reject clients using that protocol. A secure WLAN will also include tools to detect and report so-called flooding attacks, giving system administrators valuable time to prevent access points from being overwhelmed, and causing system failure.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Rogue Access Points (APs) can create serious threats to security in a corporate network. Often these rogue APs are not brought into the network to deliberately violate security. But if this is not integrated into the existing network, security policies will easily fall apart. The same applies when the AP is brought into the network to gain unauthorised assess.<\/font> <\/p>\n

WLANs need to scan for, detect, locate and then isolate rogue APs.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Only with this level of security is it possible to truly ensure that service delivery is effective, and that the latest wireless technologies, such as wireless IP telephony, multimedia and collaboration, can guarantee genuinely seamless and secure wireless communications.<\/font> <\/p>\n

From a small project designed to equip a single division for mobile working, to implementing communications across an entire organisation, effective security is crucial.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the ever-growing potential for wireless networking, Yves Roux, Nortel vice-president for Africa, argues that securing the network infrastructure is imperative to realising the full capability of wireless LANs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}