From National Institute of Standards and Technology | Nov 24, 2010
Wireless local area networks (WLAN) are groups of wireless networking nodes within a
limited geographic area, such as an office building or building campus, that are
capable of radio communication. WLANs are usually implemented as extensions to existing
wired local area networks (LAN) to provide enhanced user mobility and network access.
The most widely implemented WLAN technologies are based on the IEEE 802.11 standard and
its amendments. This document discusses the security of legacy IEEE 802.11 technologies
— those that are not capable of using the IEEE 802.11i security
standard.
Organizations employing legacy IEEE 802.11 WLANs should be aware of the limited and
weak security controls available to protect communications. Legacy WLANs are
particularly susceptible to loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability.
Unauthorized users have access to well-documented security flaws and exploits that can
easily compromise an organization's systems and information, corrupt the organization's
data, consume network bandwidth, degrade network performance, launch attacks that
prevent authorized users from accessing the network or use the organization's resources
to launch attacks on other networks.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends that
organizations with existing legacy IEEE 802.11 implementations develop and implement
migration strategies to move to IEEE 802.11i-based security because of its superior
capabilities. IEEE 802.11i addresses the security flaws in the original IEEE 802.11
standard with built-in features providing robust wireless communications security,
including support for Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) validated
cryptographic algorithms. While legacy IEEE 802.11 networks are still in use,
organizations should follow the recommendations in this publication to compensate for
the security weaknesses inherent in legacy WLANs.
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