4.5 Managing
Security
Maintaining security in a wireless LAN environment is somewhat different from a wired network, because the radio waves do not
stop at your office walls. Eavesdropping or unauthorised access from outside your building can be a serious threat.
There are three types of actions involved:
•
Protecting your data while it is transferred from one station to another. Encryption techniques will be necessary in most
environments (Data Privacy).
•
Control who can make use of the wireless network (Access Control).
•
Protecting your network configuration against tampering from both inside and outside your organisation (Secure
Management).
Data Privacy
An WX-1500 Access Point supports three different data
privacy algorithms: unencrypted data; standardised
IEEE 802.11b WEP (based on a 40 bit shared key, and
generated 128 bit session keys).
Access Control
The IEEE 802.11b standard allows for Access Control
rules based on the client station’s hardware address,
and is fully implemented by the WX-1500.
Secure
Management
The primary protection against tampering for any SNMP
agent is the Write Community String (WCS), which
functions as a password for network management
commands. The WCS is sent over your network in plain
text, making it vulnerable to eavesdropping from within
your organisation. The WCS is never sent over the
radio, however.
If you want you can lock your Access Points. After
being locked they can no longer be managed via
SNMP. Press the pinhole Reset switch on the back-
panel of the Access Point to unlock the Access Point.
Select the required security options in the WLAN Security property sheet.
Use this button to lock the settings of the
Access Points (almost) permanently
Edit the Community String
field to modify the SNMP
Write Community String for
all Access Points in the
selected WLAN.
Select the data privacy
algorithm(s) you want to
support in the Access Points.
See the section Access
Control for details.
.
