What Is Ssid Broadcast; What Is Wi-Fi Protected Access (Wpa); What Is Wpa2; What Is 802.1X Authentication - CNET WNOR5305 User Manual

5.14 What is SSID Broadcast?

Broadcast of SSID is done in access points by the beacon. This announces your access point (including various bits of in-
formation about it) to the wireless world around it. By disabling that feature, the SSID configured in the client must match
the SSID of the access point.
Some wireless devices don't work properly if SSID isn't broadcast (for example the D-link DWL-120 USB 802.11b adapt-
er). Generally if your client hardware supports operation with SSID disabled, it's not a bad idea to run that way to enhance
network security. However it's no replacement for WEP, MAC filtering or other protections.

5.15 What is Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)?

Wi-Fi's original security mechanism, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), has been viewed as insufficient for securing con-
fidential business communications. A longer-term solution, the IEEE 802.11i standard, is under development. However,
since the IEEE 802.11i standard is not expected to be published until the end of 2003, several members of the Wi-Fi Alli-
ance teamed up with members of the IEEE 802.11i task group to develop a significant near-term enhancement to Wi-Fi se-
curity. Together, this team developed Wi-Fi Protected Access.
To upgrade a WLAN network to support WPA, Access Points will require a WPA software upgrade. Clients will require a
software upgrade for the network interface card, and possibly a software update for the operating system. For enterprise
networks, an authentication server, typically one that supports RADIUS and the selected EAP authentication protocol will
be added to the network.

5.16 What is WPA2?

It is the second generation of WPA. WPA2 is based on the final IEEE 802.11i amendment to the 802.11 standard.

5.17 What is 802.1x Authentication?

802.1x is a framework for authenticated MAC-level access control, defines Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) over
LANs (WAPOL). The standard encapsulates and leverages much of EAP, which was defined for dial-up authentication
with Point-to-Point Protocol in RFC 2284.
Beyond encapsulating EAP packets, the 802.1x standard also defines EAPOL messages that convey the shared key infor-
mation critical for wireless security.
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