Sep 25
Thursday
Why Do We Concentrate on 802.11 Security?
The widespread area of 802.11 network coverage zones is one of the major reasons for rising security concerns and interest: An attacker can be positioned everywhere no one expects him or her to be and stay well away from the network’s physical premises. Another reason is the widespread use of 802.11 networks themselves: By 2006 the number of shipped 802.11-enabled hardware devices is estimated to exceed 40 million units (Figure 1-2), even as the prices on these units keep falling. After 802.11g products hit the market, the price for many 802.11b client cards dropped to the cost level of 100BaseT Ethernet client cards. Of course here is a fantastic speed disadvantage (5–7 Mbps on 802.11b vs. 100 Mbps on switched quick Ethernet), but not every network has high-speed requirements, and in many cases wireless deployment will be preferable. These cases include ancient houses in Europe protected as a part of the National Heritage. In such houses, drilling through obstacles to lay the cabling is prohibited by law. Another case is offices positioned on opposite sides of a busy road, highway, or office park. Finally, the last loop provider services via wireless are basically a replacement for the cable or xDSL link and 802.11b “pipe” is not likely to be a bottleneck in such cases, taking into account common xDSL or cable network bandwidth.
Figure 1.2. The growth of the 802.11 wireless market.
802.11 networks are everywhere, simple to find, and, as you will see in this book, often do not require any effort to frequent with. Even if they are protected by WEP (which still remains the most common security countermeasure on 802.11 LANs), the vulnerabilities of WEP are very well publicized and known to virtually anyone with a minimal interest in wireless networking. On the contrary, other wireless carton-switched networks are far from life that common and widespread, do not have well-known and “advertised” vulnerabilities, and often require obscure and expensive proprietary hardware to explore. At the same time, 802.11 crackers commonly run their own wireless LANs (WLANs) and use their equipment for both cracking and home and community networking.
