A Survey on Design and Development of Wireless Local Area Network Security and Enhancement Using Wired Equivalent Privacy

Abstract: Wireless LAN deployment improves users� mobility, but it also brings a range of security issues that affect emerging standards and related technologies. WLANs let users access a high-speed connection in areas where physically wired networks can�t penetrate or are not cost effective. Many companies use WLANs as add-ons to their main wired networks. The popularity of wireless networks is causing many engineers to analyze weaknesses and vulnerabilities in current wireless protocols. In the 802.11 standard an optional encryption protocol called Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) is used to make wireless traffic as secure as wired network traffic. WEP's duty is to encrypt packets and authenticate wireless LAN adapters. WEP is implemented at the data-link layer on all Wi-Fi compliant devices. RC4 is used as the encryption algorithm in WEP, which has been thoroughly analyzed and thought of as secure. In this paper, the various weakness of WEP taken for analyzing. To improve the security of keys used in WEP, 802.11i will most likely use a form of temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) and CCMP. Although WLANs solve some problems that exist in traditional wired LANs, they also introduce new security issues. Here we identify current and future WLAN security concerns and possible countermeasures, including standards, technologies, management, policies, and service environments. The risks that WLAN services present can only be mitigated rather than completely eliminated.

Keywords: WLAN, LAN, WEP, TKIP, CCMP, OFDM, Wi-Fi, 802.11 Protocol.