ZyXEL Communications P-2602 Security Parameters Summary, Wireless Security Relational Matrix

P-2602H(W)(L)-DxA Series User’s Guide

The Message Integrity Check (MIC) is designed to prevent an attacker from capturing data packets, altering them and resending them. The MIC provides a strong mathematical function in which the receiver and the transmitter each compute and then compare the MIC. If they do not match, it is assumed that the data has been tampered with and the packet is dropped.

By generating unique data encryption keys for every data packet and by creating an integrity checking mechanism (MIC), TKIP makes it much more difficult to decrypt data on a Wi-Fi network than WEP, making it difficult for an intruder to break into the network.

The encryption mechanisms used for WPA and WPA-PSK are the same. The only difference between the two is that WPA-PSK uses a simple common password, instead of user-specific credentials. The common-password approach makes WPA-PSK susceptible to brute-force password-guessing attacks but it’s still an improvement over WEP as it employs an easier-to- use, consistent, single, alphanumeric password.

Security Parameters Summary

Refer to this table to see what other security parameters you should configure for each Authentication Method/ key management protocol type. MAC address filters are not dependent on how you configure these security features.

Table 149 Wireless Security Relational Matrix

AUTHENTICATION	ENCRYPTION	ENTER
METHOD/ KEY			ENABLE IEEE 802.1X
	METHOD	MANUAL KEY
MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL
Open	None	No	No
Open	WEP	No	Enable with Dynamic WEP Key
		Yes	Enable without Dynamic WEP Key
		Yes	Disable
Shared	WEP	No	Enable with Dynamic WEP Key
		Yes	Enable without Dynamic WEP Key
		Yes	Disable
WPA	WEP	No	Yes
WPA	TKIP	No	Yes
WPA-PSK	WEP	Yes	Yes
WPA-PSK	TKIP	Yes	Yes

370 Appendix E Wireless LANs