High Speed Wlans and Wlan Security
High Speed Wlans and Wlan Security
Authentication and privacy are different elements that are both crucial to information technology security. Authentication can be defined as proving the identity of a user or process to be true (Killian, 2016). It can be referred to as the person or process that needs to access the resources. To achieve access, authentication requires the user of the resource to possess certain credentials. On the other hand, privacy is the action of protecting personal information from individuals who do not qualify to view the data. In other words, it may be referred to as data privacy or information privacy, which aims at maintaining confidentiality. Privacy and confidentiality are closely linked together as unauthorized users are prohibited from viewing wireless transmissions. Unlike authentication where processes and users need credentials to access resources, privacy deals with governing the levels of clearance that different individuals may be granted to view specific material.
Wireless networks have several options to protect themselves from authentication and privacy attacks. To ensure authentication, WLANs can use mechanisms such as open, shared, and Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) authentication (Wilkins, 2020). Open authentication relies on the end device being aware of the SSID to be allowed on the network. Shared authentication uses a shared key (PSK) given to both sides of the network. The EAP authentication queries an authentication server using numerous credential options. For the issue of privacy, the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a strategy that has been found reliable when using public wireless networks. The mechanism sets up an encrypted tunnel far outside the wireless network to allow two devices to communicate with each other safely. All in all, these mechanisms are bound to give WLANs a fighting chance against attackers who intend to compromise authentication and privacy.
References
Killian, M. (2016). What Authentication means in information security. Retrieved from https://frsecure.com/blog/what-authentication-means-in-information-security/
Wilkins, S. (2020). WLAN Authentication and Encryption. Retrieved from https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/it-ops/wireless-encryption-authentication
