802.11 Security

by Bruce Potter, Bob Fleck

Mention wireless networks, and the question of security will soon follow. It's not surprising that in spite of compelling business arguments for going wireless, many companies are holding back because of security concerns. But, while it's true that wireless networks create security issues that don't exist in wired networks, the issues are not insurmountable. 802.11 Security shows how you can plan for and successfully contend with security obstacles in your wireless deployment. This authoritative book not only explains the security issues, but shows you how to design and build a your own secure wireless network.

802.11 Security covers the entire process of building secure 802.11-based wireless networks, in particular, the 802.11b ("Wi-Fi") specification. The authors provide detailed coverage of security issues unique to wireless networking, such as Wireless Access Points (WAP), bandwidth stealing, and the problematic Wired Equivalent Privacy component of 802.11. You'll learn how to configure a wireless client and to set up a WAP using either Linux or Free BSD. You'll also find thorough information on controlling network access and encrypting client traffic.

Beginning with an introduction to 802.11b in general, the book gives you a broad basis in theory and practice of wireless security, dispelling some of the myths along the way. In doing so, they provide you with the technical grounding required to think about how the rest of the book applies to your specific needs and situations. Next, the book details the technical setup instructions needed for both the Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. Some of the topics covered include:


Station Security for Linux, FreeBSD, Open BSD, Mac OS X and Windows Setting Up Access Point Security Gateway Security, including building Gateways, firewall Rules, Auditing, etc. Authentication and Encryption FreeBSD IPsec client and gateway configuration Linux IPsec client and gateway configuration 802.1x authentication

802.11 Security is a book whose time has come. If you are a network, security, or systems engineer, or anyone interested in deploying 802.11b-based systems, you'll want this book beside you every step of the way.

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Bruce Potter is a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton. Prior to working at Booz Allen Hamilton, Bruce served as a software security consultant for Cigital in Dulles, VA. Bruce is the founder of the Shmoo Group of security professionals. His areas of expertise include wireless security, large-scale network architectures, smartcards, and promotion of secure software engineering practices. Bruce coauthored the books 802.11 Security and Mac OS X Security. He was trained in computer science at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again, pretty much any computer book that I review will probably say that it is dated, but this one is pretty good from a discussion of protocols, design, theory, and examples. The book was logically divided into 802.11 security basics, client security, access point security, gateway security, with the last bits talking about portals and additional encryption, such as IPsec VPN. Given that I cut my teeth with laptops dual booting Windows 2000 and Red Hat Linux using Orinoco wireless PCMCIA cards (knowing the cryptographic limitations of WEP at the time) and got this to work with non-*nix/*BSD wireless access points, this book expanded upon my knowledge to talk about what it would take to create a Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD access point / gateway solution. Bonus points for talking about portals and IPsec VPNs, in my opinion.

Given some of the other online research I did, it makes me want to experiment with materials from Chapters 9, 11, and 14, because this is something I'd have always liked to tinker with to see what I could get up and running. Overall, a pretty good O'Reilly book.