Gateway 7001 Series 86

Comparison of security modes for key management, authentication, and encryption algorithms

The three major factors that determine the effectiveness of a security protocol are:

■How the protocol manages keys

■Presence or absence of integrated user authentication in the protocol

■Encryption algorithm or formula the protocol uses to encode/decode the data

Following is a list of the security modes available on the Gateway 7001 Series self-managed AP along with a description of the key management, authentication, and encryption algorithms used in each mode. We include some suggestions as to when one mode might be more appropriate than another.

When to use plain text

Plain text mode by definition provides no security. In this mode, the data is not encrypted but rather sent as plain text across the network. No key management, data encryption, or user authentication is used.

Recommendations

Plain text mode is not recommended for regular use on the internal network because it is not secure.

Plain text mode is the only mode in which you can run the guest network, which is by definition an unsecure LAN always virtually or physically separated from any sensitive information on the internal LAN.

Therefore, use plain text mode on the guest network, and on the internal network for initial setup, testing, or problem solving only.

For information on how to configure plain text mode, see “Plain-text” on page 88.

When to use static WEP

Static Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a data encryption protocol for 802.11 wireless networks. All wireless stations and access points on the network are configured with a static 64-bit (40-bit secret key + 24-bit initialization vector (IV)) or 128-bit (104-bit secret key + 24-bit IV) Shared Key for data encryption.