Wireless networks & Security

Exploiting vulnerabilities in WLAN

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Abstract

Wireless Networks with 802.11 standards is gaining popularity because of its flexibility and
mobility towards accessing information. The current solutions of WLANs are getting exposed
to several security vulnerabilities. After evaluating the 802.11 standard of WLAN, certain
technical issues have been identified in the paper. Finally, it has been recommended to use
WPA2 security protocol for protecting the network of the small company through the use of
256 bits’ encryption technology and changing the secret key periodically.

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 Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3

Technical flaws – Bypassing WLAN authentication.................................................................3

Technical flaws – WLAN encryption flaws...............................................................................3

Technical flaws – 802.11 client flaws........................................................................................3

Suitable security measures.........................................................................................................3

Justification of the choices.........................................................................................................4

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4

References..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction

Technical flaws – Bypassing WLAN authentication

Technical flaws – WLAN encryption flaws

Technical flaws – 802.11 client flaws

Suitable security measures

In the given scenario of a small company allowing only its employees for accessing the
network have to consider certain security measures to secure the network from the identified
technical flaws. As the paper has identified three important technical flaws for WLAN, the
network needs to be more secure to overcome the flaws. Therefore, the most effective method
of protecting an 802.11 network is enabling the WPA2 as the organization’s security protocol
rather than WEP [4]. WEP has multiple security vulnerabilities having a combination of MC
filtering. Moreover, to make the WLAN of the small company more secure, it is
recommended to use two hundred fifty-six bits for enabling the encryption, which is
considered the strongest encryption at this time [6]. Furthermore, there the small company
has to change its key periodically with the implementation of a strong password policy,
which will increase the difficulty of the attacker’s attempt to exploit this thing [1].

As the small company is using wireless access points for providing wireless access to its
staff, it is very significant to check the configuration settings to avoid exploitation of the
possible vulnerabilities [3]. It is recommended to use separate administrator access for the
configuration of the access points and running the firmware. Moreover, the default login
credentials must be changed at the beginning to avoid tampering or unauthenticated access to
the configuration settings [2]. So far, the only risk of using WPA2 encryption is password
attacks, but it can be mitigated by implementing a strong password for the particular small
company network. The significance of a complex password for WLAN is, therefore, cannot
be underrated. The company can use a WLAN key having several characters as possible that
will be case sensitive along with numbers and special characters [5]. The distribution of
characters should be random that will make it more difficult to crack.

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Justification of the choices

Conclusion
The paper has discussed mainly three categories of technical errors that are linked with a
wireless network, especially the protocols associated with the 802.11 standard. The first flaw
that has been identified is bypassing the authentication while using a hidden SSID and using
MAC filtering by the administrators. This is possible because of the shared secret key
authentication that allows an external agent to discover the SSID through passive scanning.
The second flaw is associated with the WEP and WPA2 encryption algorithm in which the
WEP encryption algorithm can allow attackers to intercept the data. Moreover, the third flaw
is associated with 802.11 clients. The report has also provided some security measures that
need to be implemented by the small company to avoid exploitation of the flaws in the future.

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References
[1]S. Suroto, "WLAN Security: Threats And Countermeasures", JOIV : International
Journal on Informatics Visualization, vol. 2, no. 4, p. 232, 2018. Available:
10.30630/joiv.2.4.133.

[2]"Research Methods for Cyber Security", Network Security, vol. 2018, no. 6, p. 5, 2018.
Available: 10.1016/s1353-4858(18)30053-9.

[3]Suroto, Suroto. "WLAN Security: Threats And Countermeasures." JOIV: International

Journal on Informatics Visualization 2, no. 4 2018: 232-238.

[4]Kyaw11, Ar Kar, Zhuang Tian, and Brian Cusack. "Wi-Pi: a study of WLAN security in
Auckland City." IJCSNS 16, no. 8 2016: 68.

[5]Li, June, Kai Yuan, Liang Zhou, Lifang Han, Ling Li, Zhihao Wang, Yinbin Liu, and
Wenbin Huang. "A detection method of WLAN security mechanisms based on MAC frame
resolution." Wuhan University Journal of Natural Sciences 22, no. 2 2017: 93-102.

[6]Alblwi, Samia, and Khalil Shujaee. "A survey on wireless security protocol WPA2."
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Management (SAM), pp. 12-
17. The Steering Committee of The World Congress in Computer Science, Computer
Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp), 2017.