8-2
Cisco Aironet 1200 Series Access Point Software Configuration Guide
OL-2159-05
Chapter8 Security Setup
Security Overview
Security Overview
This section describes the types of security features you can enable on the access point. The security
features protect wireless communication between the access point and other wireless devices, control
access to your network, and prevent unauthorized entry to the access point management system.
On an access point with two radios, you can assign different secu rity settings to each radio.

Levels of Security

Security is vital for any wireless network, and you should enable all the security features available on
your network. Figure 8-1 shows possible levels of security on Cisco Aironet wireless networking
equipment, from no security on the left to highest security on the right. The highest level of security,
EAP authentication, interacts with a Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) server on
your network to provide authentication service for wireless client devices.
Figure8-1 Wireless LAN Security Levels
If you dont enable any security features on your access point, anyone with a wirel ess networking device
is able to join your network. If you enable open or shared-key authentication with WEP encryption, your
network is safe from casual outsiders but vulnerable to intruders who use a hacking algorithm to
calculate the WEP key. If you enable server-based EAP authentication with Message Integrity Check
(MIC), Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP, also known as key hashing), and broadcast key rotation,
your network is safe from all but the most sophisticated attacks against wireless security.

Encrypting Radio Signals with WEP

Just as anyone within range of a radio station can tune to the stations frequency and listen to the signal,
any wireless networking device within range of an access point can receive the access points radio
transmissions. Because WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is the first line of defense against intruders,
Cisco recommends that you use full encryption on your wireles s network.
Default
settings
Unique
SSID with
Broadcast
SSID
disabled
Shared
key
authen-
tication
with WEP
Open
authen-
tication
with WEP
MAC-
based
authen-
tication
with WEP
EAP
authen-
tication
with WEP
EAP
authen-
tication
with MIC,
TKIP, and
WEP
Not secure Most secure
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