Security Threats and Countermeasures in WLAN

Wireless-the name says it all: ”Cut the cord”. Today there is no hotter area of development than wireless networking. Enterprizes are rapidly adopting wireless local area networks (WLANs). Driving this rapid adoption is the low-cost and inherent convenience of rapidly deployed connectivity solutions, which are not burdened by a wired infrastructure. WLAN have been in the news quite a lot, recently both from the perspective of growing popularity and in terms of security vulnerabilities that have been discovered in the wired equivalent privacy (WEP) security standard, which is supposed to ensure the security of data that flows over the networks. While wireless LANs are convenient and provide immediate connectivity, they also impose unique management, security, and mobility challenges on network. Though “connect anywhere at anytime” promise of the wireless networks is beginning to become popular; there are a plenty of confusion among prospective users when it comes to security. Because WLAN impose such significant challenges, should all 802.11 networks be considered hostile to the prospective user? Not necessarily. A well-designed wireless LAN ensures that the network is well protected and easy to manage, without sacrificing the wireless user’s ability to roam seamlessly. This is a survey paper that focuses on the catalog of security risks and countermeasures of the wireless network. We describe the standard mechanisms available for authentication of users and the protection of the privacy and integrity of the data. A basic analysis of each security countermeasure is conducted by looking at the attack techniques addressed by the mechanism. Our analysis takes into account the perspective of both insiders and outsiders.