802.11i: all secure? The widely anticipated 802.11i security standard for WLANs is a done deal, but vendors are reminding enterprises that it's just one link in the LAN security chain, while one company says it's already found a way around it.(Wireless Tech)

Wireless Asia, July, 2004 by Tanner, John C.

Enterprises have been worried about WLAN security for years since the discovery that 802.11b's security standard, WEP (wired equivalent privacy), was hard to implement but fairly easy to crack with the right tools, and that the tools in question were available on the Internet and required little in the way of hacking expertise.

While the IEEE worked on an official standardized solution--dubbed 802.11i--the Wi-Fi Alliance addressed the problem in 2002 with an interim solution called Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which incorporated some of 802.11i's abilities, such as easier setup using pre-shared keys, and--for enterprise WLANs--RADIUS-based 802.1x authentication. Meanwhile, WLAN vendors advised their enterprise customers to use VPN technology as an extra...

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