WiNetworks WiN5213-2, User Manual And Installation Manual, Page: 16 / 53

WiN5200 Product Description | 16
Standard (AES) which supports, 128-bit, 192-bit or 256-bit encryption keys. Also AES meets
the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 specification, required by
numerous governmental branches. This technology, which requires dedicated processors on
board base stations, is robust and highly effective.
Traffic encryption may be employed per 802.16 Service Flow and is subject to operator policy.
The relevance of encryption to the network operator deployment is questionable. In the past,
for example, many cellular carriers focused on authentication and mostly ignored encryption.
Whether that will change as mobile service providers ramp up more broadband applications
is an open question.
The downside to these heavy computing tasks (i.e. authentication and encryption) is that all
of this requires processor cycles, which may affect the performance of the system.
Nevertheless, the Win-Max™ system and especially, the SS and BST, which are the entities
that take active role in heavy security-related computations, were built bottom to top with a
design goal of offloading heavily computing tasks from the host processor to a specific circuit.
Consequently, no performance degradation is neglected.
2.4.2.4 Third Party Intrusion Protection
We examined WiMAX authentication schemes, which are a major component of a secure
network. And we also spoke of data encryption. Clearly, WiMAX possesses solid tools
already built in. But there are considerations beyond just good security that can drive a
migration to third party intrusion detection and protection tools---namely business case
elements. Intrusion protection is however, not data protection. These are two different classes
of solution. Certainly, a good third party intrusion protection can monitor and secure a
network's authentication. However, many solutions also offer worm protection, Trojan horse
protection, defenses against viruses, backdoor exploits and denial of service attacks to name a
few. Some of these elements are almost a business necessity for a wireless service provider
and may justify the cost of an additional security suite initially. For other companies, a
migration strategy to enhanced tools makes the most cost effective sense.
A good place to start is examining market and service scenarios. If your customer base is
highly sensitive to data integrity (financial sector or hospital customers) third party intrusion
prevention systems can help segment customers from each other better as well as secure them
from outside attack.
Or in another example, a mobile network that offers just Internet access and voice may wish
to abrogate responsibility for data encryption and use session initiation protocol (SIP)
signaling for its VoIP and WiMAX native authentication tools.
Referring to encryption, clearly an AES supported data encryption system gives WiMAX
excellent security in this regard. However, additional solutions that meet customer needs
such as virtual private networks may enhance the business model and provide additional
source of revenue.