What are some of the most promising wireless security standards on the horizon?
The two to watch are WPA and 802.11i. With WPA, the Wi-Fi Alliance picked the best parts from the proposed 802.11i standard and is working to certify that for interoperability, so that companies can use it right away. This level of security should be fine for most companies. For government agencies or those with heightened security needs, they’ll want to keep an eye on the proposed 802.11i standard that will be ratified next year. Within that, the technology to watch is temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP), which improves the encryption of wireless data. Why are enterprises concerned about security on wireless local area networks? Wireless LANs are really just an extension of the wired network, and anytime you access the network, that connection should be secure. You never want to allow a casual or malicious user to enter your network. With security you always want to eliminate any potential opening or weak point, and wireless [LANs] can be a weak point. The average maximum distance
