A RESEARCH STUDY ON WEB SECURITY VIA W-LAN

ABSTRACT

The WLAN standards currently in use and on what is being done to develop the technology further. A special focus is on the security point of view, as it appears that there may be some security flaws with the current technologies. The thesis includes an overview of the existing standards, literary research on their security flaws and information on what is being done to fix them. We also suggest some workarounds to avoid the security holes.WLAN or Wireless Local Area Network is a term used for the networks in which a user can have a high bitrate network connection through a wireless (radio) connection. The WLAN networks are usually high in bitrate but relatively short in range. There are several standards that specify the different kinds of WLANs. The IEEE standards for WLAN also include an encryption algorithm called Wired Equivalent Privacy, or WEP. It’s purpose was originally to make WLAN connections as safe as regular LAN connections.The physical architecture of wireless networks is quite simple - Access Points (AP) are connected to the normal wired network and they provide wireless access to clients (e.g. laptops, PDAs) with WLAN Network Interface Cards (NIC). WLANs may also be set up between two devices with a NIC, and it is possible to use the WLAN technology to build larger ad hoc networks as well.

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