Security and wireless networks

The nature of wireless networks extending access to the internal network beyond the physical boundaries of the enterprise introduces complexities in properly securing access. In the standard internal network implementation, physical access is required to cable into the network in order to gain access to enterprise resources; to date this has been the method of ensuring trust for hosts connecting. Though this is not well-evaluated logic, the same rationale has been generally applied to wireless networks. Because wireless networks allow a level of anonymity for connecting hosts, a degree of trust must be established for connecting hosts and the infrastructure providing the wireless access.

In order to provide security through obscurity, methods such as hidden SSIDs and MAC address filtering have been employed to keep the wireless network invisible to eavesdroppers and more difficult to connect to for an unknown host. Unfortunately, these methods fail due to...