SMC Networks SMCWUSBS-N manual Configuration, 5. Authentication - LEAP

Configuration

Figure 3-5. Authentication - LEAP

-WPA / WPA-PSK– Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) employs a combination of technologies to provide an enhanced security solution for wireless networks. The WPA Pre-shared Key (WPA-PSK) mode for small networks uses a common password phrase that must be manually distributed to all clients that want to connect to the netwok.

-WPA2 / WPA2-PSK– WPA2 is a futher security enhancement that includes the now ratified IEEE 802.11i wireless security standard.

•Encryption – Configure the encryption. For open and shared authentication mode, the selection options are None and WEP. For WPA, WPA2, WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK authentication mode, the encryption type supports both TKIP and AES.

-None – No encryption is used.

-WEP – Enables the Wireless USB Adapter to use WEP shared keys. If enabled, you must configure at least one key. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) provides a basic level of security, preventing unauthorized access to the network and encrypting data transmitted between wireless clients. WEP uses static shared keys (fixed-length hexadecimal or alphanumeric strings) that are manually distributed to all clients that want to use the network.

-TKIP – Use Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) keys for encryption. WPA specifies TKIP as the data encryption method to replace WEP. TKIP avoids the problems of WEP static keys by dynamically changing data encryption keys.

-AES – Use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) keys for encryption. WPA2 uses AES Counter-Mode encryption with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code (CBC-MAC) for message integrity. The AES Counter-Mode/CBCMAC Protocol (AES-CCMP) provides extremely robust data confidentiality using a 128-bit key. Use of AES-CCMP encryption is specified as a standard requirement for WPA2. Before implementing WPA2 in the network, be sure client devices are upgraded to WPA2-compliant hardware.

Click OK to confirm the configuration or click Cancel to cancel the settings.

•802.1X — Use IEEE 802.1X (802.1X) for user authentication and distributing dynamically generated encryption keys. IEEE 802.1X is a standard framework for

3-6