Introduction

Security is one of the biggest concerns in any network infrastructure. A public security breach of a business network can scare away current and potential clients causing a company to lose millions in revenue. Today, network architectures built without security components are unacceptable.

Network technology has evolved at a rapid pace, moving the development of security along with it. Constant pressure to assemble the latest security and technology has left many network administrators in a rush to deploy without proper testing and security review, in some cases only to find out that the latest technology has become old by the time of its implementation.

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are changing the way business is conducted. The use of remote devices such as phones, laptops, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) along with the demand for continued network connection without having the need to plug in, are driving the wireless revolution and adoption of WLAN.

This chapter reviews general network security and best practices that you can undertake to understand and protect your wireless network. It reviews the types of security threats and unauthorized breaches, both on wired and wireless, that you are trying to protect your networks from. It is important to know why you are implementing security features and from whom you are trying to protect you network against prior to implementing any network security architecture.

This chapter also reviews and discusses war driving techniques (driving around detecting wireless access points) and the role that they play...