A Study of Security Protocols for Wireless Local Area Network

Abstract

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have become more prevalent and are widely deployed and used in many popular places like university campuses, airports, residences, cafes etc. With this growing popularity, the security of wireless network is also very important. In this study we present the security mechanisms available for WLANs. These security mechanisms are Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and 802.11i (WPA2).Our aim is to show how an attack can be made on systems using the above mentioned mechanisms. We have given a brief overview of their working, structure, algorithms used and have tried to explore the real timevulnerabilitiesbyissuingsuccessfulattacksagainstWEPandWPA2network. The attacks were done in an ad-hoc network, using three laptops with wi-fi facility. We begin with WEP protocol which employs a flawed RC4 algorithm is very much prone to attack and is easily crackable, then listing some of its weakness. Then we have a look on WPA as the enhanced standard of WEP, along with some flaws in it. Finally an attack on WPA is explained. CommView version 6.3 and Aircrack-ng 1.2 RC 1 are the tools (software) those we have used to launch the attacks. The process required for attacking are explained, along with the screen-shots to help understand the working.