Advantages And Disadvantages Of Wireless Communication

Fall Semester 20171

Fundamentals of Information Security – 3153020

Assignment:

Wireless Security

Done by:

Abdullah Ali Alwan 201410419

Wireless Communications:

Wireless communications are defined as the transmission of digital data while connected to some type of data network, without the use of any cabling. A device that utilizes wireless communications would be a smartphone, as it can connect to a network without using a wire.

There are different technologies that uses wireless communications, such as:

1. Wi-Fi: The most popular and recognizable of technologies. It enables any device to connect to the internet using a wireless router. It is also used on other devices that support this type of technology. A person can

Satellite Networks: Some companies or research centers may be located on an isolated location where there is no easy access to the internet. Therefore, they send signals from a remote location to a satellite laying in orbit to connect to the internet by using a satellite router. Satellite networks are used for GPS, weather forecast, and even internet access on airplanes

Advantages of wireless communications:

• Convenient to use: Users can access network resources from any location within their networking environment, without having to find an ethernet cable for this purpose.

• Expandable: Wireless networks can serve a large number of clients without resorting to new hardware, while wired communications require additional cabling.

• More productive: An employee can do their work at any place that has wireless networks, without having to resort to using a workstation from their main place of work

• Mobility: Users can access wireless networks from anywhere within any range.

Disadvantages:

• Difficult to setup for user with little experience

• More vulnerable than wired networks (e.g.: WPA, WPA2)

• Wireless networks use wave signals to transmit data, therefore they are more prone to disruption due to factors such as wave cancellation due to long distances.

• Slower speeds than wired

This protocol provides better data encryption than WEP, and it also provides user authentication.

WPA also uses RC4 cipher algorithm, but has more features such as:

1. Stronger authentication: WPA uses EAP, a user authentication protocol that ensures that users are who they claim to be.

2. Longer keys: The length of the IV is increased to 48 bits, and the master key is increased to lengths up to 128 bits.

3. Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP): a security protocol that can generate different keys on every packet sent.

4. Message integrity code (MIC): protects messages from replay attacks and ensures that messages have not been altered.

Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) is a protocol that is used by WPA to provide data encryption which works the same as the RC4 algorithm, except with longer keys. It works by changing the key of each packet sent by the user. However, it does not protect against eavesdroppers as they can catch the key exchange between two