Wireless Home Security

Wireless Home Security

Wireless Home Security

With the advent of wireless technology and wireless home networks (WLAN), comes the trouble of protecting them from identity theft and viruses. Identity theft and computer viruses are a serious problem today in both wired and wireless networks. It is important to understand the types of methods that have been produced to provide wireless home network security.

What is Wireless home Security?

In order to protect the wireless home networks the "IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) created 802.11 or Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), which is a wireless networking standard to secure wireless networks (also known as Wi-Fi networks)." Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) was originally licensed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to illustrate the fundamental technology of wireless local area networks (WLAN), which is based on the IEEE 802.11 stipulation. WEP is a security protocol that provides a wireless LAN (WLAN) with a nominal level of security and privacy for comparable to a typical wired LAN. WEP encrypts data that is sent over the WLAN (WLAN uses radio frequencies to transmit data) to provide protection between the user and wireless access point or wireless router. The WEP protocol is considered vulnerable and is susceptible to hackers.

Because of the vulnerability of WEP, the IEEE created Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA or 802.11i) and WPA2, which is the enhanced version of WPA. The WPA protocol uses "dynamic keys, Extensible Authentication Protocol to secure network access, and an encryption method called Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP ensures that every data packet is sent with its own unique encryption key using a method called key mixing) to secure data transmissions," while WPA2 uses "Advanced Encryption Standard instead of TKIP. AES supports 128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit keys."

Future of Wireless Home Security

What is the future for wireless home security? The future for wireless home security will be ever changing because technology will always keep on changing. Even though things might change, security will always be an issue that users will always have an issue with. In order to keep up with the ever changing technology and devices, companies have to keep updating or improving their security programs. Identity theft is one of the biggest issues in the United States; people are always looking for ways to steal someone else's personal information so they can use it for their own gain. In order to prevent this from happening, security is a must for all home wireless systems.

Wireless technology in itself is not very secure; the majority of the people who use the internet are using an unsecured network. That is why Anti-Virus and other security software were created. WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) was the premiere encryption standard to protect home wireless networks and was the security protocol for wireless local area networks; but it was very hard to configure so most home networks were not able to use them. Hence the creation of Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity), the industry name for WLAN (Wireless Local Area Networks) technology related to IEEE specifications, which was created to help home users configure their WEP to maximize their home wireless security.

In 1999, the Wi-Fi Alliance, a global and non-profit organization, was created with the goal of making everyone adopt one single worldwide-accepted standard for high-speed wireless local are networking. This organization consists of over 250 companies who have joined together to create products and services that will secure all home wireless networks. They are basically the future of wireless security; they develop and create the products and devices that help all Wi-Fi networks be compatible. They stress the need for everyone to be on a secured wireless network.

Without secured networks, having wireless technology at home is unsafe. Many people have wireless networks at home and without any type of security, they put themselves at risk of getting their personal information stolen. Without the encryptions and firewalls, home users will constantly be at risk of something happening to them. The future of the home wireless networks will continually grow because more and more people are putting internet services in their home; in order to keep up with this continual growth, security programmers and developers have to make sure their products are compatible with the ever-changing technology.

Companies Involved with Wireless Home Security

Many companies are involved with wireless home security. Many companies have developed programs, software, and devices that will help home users protect themselves against viruses and hackers. One main company that was involved with the development of the wireless home security was the IEEE. Another organization is the Wi-Fi Alliance; they are an organization that built off of the IEEP 802.11 standard. They are responsible for the Wi-Fi technology for the wireless local area networks.

The IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) developed the WEP to provide wireless security that would be equivalent to wired network security. The IEEE has more than 365,000 members worldwide has developed over 900 active IEEE standards, that includes the 802.11 standard. The IEEE created the WEP to use the RC4 encryption algorithm, it basically used the same key to scramble and unscramble data packets. Unfortunately, if a hacker was very good, they would still be able to hack into a network with WEP so the IEEE created the WEP2, which is an encryption protocol that was adopted for 802.11i.

Wi-Fi is a brand that was licensed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe the technology of WLAN based on the IEEE 802.11 standard. Wi-Fi was supposed to be used for mobile devices, like laptops and handheld devices but now it is being used for everything from internet access to gaming and other basic connections. The Wi-Fi Alliance basically took the IEEE 802.11 standard and elaborated on it, they started developing programs and software that they hoped would make Wi-Fi the single standard that all wireless networks worldwide would follow. They are constantly looking for new ways to make of the wireless security networks compatible.

The IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance are only two of the main companies and organizations that were involved with the development of the home wireless