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The main and mostly widespread protocol for Wireless communications is defined by the 802.11 standard, ratifyed by IEEE in 1997, and imediately extended from 802.11 to /b/g. Since it was born, the 802.11 protocol had to face several problems as concerns security. SCENARIO The 802.11 protocol has to consider that it is difficult to confine the radio signal and its consequent wiretaps, the wardriving phenomenon and the so-called Rogue Access Points, which can represent a dangerous access point to the net. WEP is the protocol which should have guarantee the security parameters according to the standard, but it did not rached this goal. Actually, during these years, it was discovered that it was possible to decipher WEP after intercepting a certian number of sets of code. The new 802.11i standard, thought to meet the need of wireless security, was approved only in 2004. In the meanwhile, the Wi-Fi Alliance had already adopted the embryonic version of the 802.11i standard, named WPA, Wi-Fi Protected Access. The main aim of WPA was to allow a gradual migration towards 802.11i, by maintaining compatibility with the old hardware, that is by requiring just a firmware upgrade to be supported. SOLUTIONS With the use of WPA on Access Points and wireless and RADIUS cards as authentication scheme, with an accurate choice upon the authentication method, is today obtained the level of security as high as possible. Even so, VPN can represent an effective alternative. This is a completely different method which let us obtain a safe authentication process and integrity of transmitted data. The two kinds of solutions are summarily presented as follows:
In the case of VPN, the Access Points and the cards operate without cipher and with any particular authentication protocol. The Access Points would be preceded by a VPN concentrator functioning as Authentication Gateway, which would let pass through only the ciphered and authenticated data. With such a solution, compared to the use of WPA, the most important advantage is not to be depending on hardware any more. In fact, in the case of WPA the wireless cards must explicitly support specific authentication methods which can be vulnerable.
Thanks to many years of experience based on collaborations with the major Banks, Telecommunication companies and Public agencies, Spike Reply, the Reply Group’s society specialized in the fields of Security and privacy Safeguard, can propose innovative and secure wireless solutions. A sound expertise, a deep knowledge of technologies, of laws, of operators and of reference standards, enable Reply to operate verifying constantly the used countermeasures and to proceed safely configuring systems, applications and nets.