Ttm4137 : Network Security In Assessment Answer

n in a network. There are a number of factors behind the increase in threats associated with the use of a wireless medium. One of the leading factors is that the use of air waves as a communicating medium makes it accessible to public. This access makes the wireless communication process vulnerable to attacks from the hackers. There are a number of ways by which an intruder can target and launch an attack on the wireless communicating medium. These includes, gaining an access to the rogue access points, weak security of the network and the denial of service attacks. The denial of service attack is however less harmful as with this attack, the hackers can only prevent the legitimate users from accessing the network but cannot fetch any data from the network. Use of a rogue access point can be described as access of the network by a person who is not authorized to access it. This can be done by setting up a false access point with an intention to eavesdrop the communication in the network. This therefore is dangerous as the confidential information that is communicated through a particular network can be easily accessed by the intruder. Therefore it is essential to ensure that the companies adopt various security strategies that can possibly help the organization in facing and eliminating the issues associated with the use of wireless network for communication .This paper will evaluate the different security strategies that a company might undertake in order to ensure that the communication channel is not compromised. There are certain basic strategies that can be undertaken by the organization. One of the basic security strategies that an organization can undertake is encryption. Encryption is one of most important security strategies that a company should undertake in order to ensure secure communication through a wireless network. The encryption in the wireless network can be done through WPA2 networking protocol as it allows only an authorized member to access the network. This network security protocol (WPA2) governs one of the most basic and certain necessary security elements such as user IDs, passwords and IP management. Without the use of proper encryption, the security of the wireless network of an organization can be compromised.

Apart from encryption, it is necessary to safeguard the associated networking devices such as routers and modems with strong password so that gaining an access to the network becomes difficult. The passwords should however be difficult to guess so that any intruder fails to get easy access to such devices associated with a wireless network.  The next strategy that can be used by the organizations in order to ensure proper network security in wireless is preventing any guest access to the network. Providing an access to guest networking often turns out to be vulnerable for a network and therefore it is necessary for an organization to turn off any guest browsing. Another important strategy to ensure data security protection to the network is to update the firmware in regular interval so that the network devices are installed with up to date network security protocols .

This will make it difficult for the hackers to access the network or get access to the network communication. Ensuring wireless security strategies mainly include two fundamental approaches which include, acknowledging and isolating the network from the rest of the network so that it becomes less vulnerable to attacks Alternatively, the wireless network can be made secure by enforcing proper encryption and authentication control in the network so that any unauthorized member fails to have an access to a particular wireless network, which in turn ensures proper security in the network. The first approach mainly focuses on segregation so that even one part of the network gets hacked the other networks of the organization remains safe .

However, one of the major concerns associated with this approach is that it does not provide actual protection to the wireless network but only ensure that the wired part of the network remains safe from the attack. The second approach provides an appropriate security and protection to the information that is exchanged through the wireless network of an organization. Wi-Fi protected access can also be considered in this case as one of the most useful strategies for ensuring security in a wireless network. WPA makes use of temporal key integrity protocol to ensure proper protection of the wireless network. The physical layer attacks on the wireless communication network include jamming and eavesdropping while that in network layer includes IP spoofing, IP hijacking and smurf attack. The attacks the wireless network might face in transport layer include TCP flooding, UDP flooding and CP sequence prediction attack.

Therefore it becomes mandatory to ensure proper security in wireless network. The strategies that are proposed provide a good solution for proper network security. However, it becomes essential to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each of the strategies that has been proposed for the wireless network in order to ensure whether the strategies proposed will actually work or not. Encryption and authentication can ensure protection against the unauthorized access to the wireless network but may not provide adequate protection against the malware attack, SQL injection, cross site scripting and FTP bounce. Another disadvantage of encryption is that it becomes quite expensive and often becomes overburden to the IT staff. Preventing any rogue access point is another strategy that can be employed by the organizations in order to ensure that any unauthorized access to the network is prevented.  It is essential for the organization to plan proper strategies to ensure protection of the wireless network. Network security mainly consists of policies and practices for proper monitoring and ensuring secure use of wireless network. The research study evaluates the strategy that will ensure protection of the network and the communication in the wireless network. One of the strategies that can be implemented for ensuring proper protection in the wireless network is making use of virtual private network .

This is because the use of VPN ensures a proper secure channel of communication so that the confidential information can be easily communicated through the medium. A VPN channel is established by making use of software on both the ends of tunnel and this tunnel helps in proper encryption and decryption of the data stream. The VPN can be used within the internal network of the organization mainly on the firewall and the other security server of the data center. The VPN coupled with encryption and authentication helps in secure data access across the organization. The intruders are not able to get an access to the information that is shared through a virtual private network. Therefore, the use of virtual private network is one of the most significant strategies that ensure proper security of wireless communication [7]. Ensuring security in a wireless network is essential as transmission of the data through this medium unguided and therefore is very much vulnerable to any attacks. Apart from VPN, encryption is another strategy that can be adopted by an organization for ensuring proper access. However, the weaknesses associated with the WEP encryption technique should be addressed and for that WPA2 encryption technique is recommended for the organization. The research study aims at evaluating the advantages as well and the disadvantages associated with the proposed strategies.

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