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Wireless LAN.  Please respond to the following:

• Analyze the characteristics of wireless LANs and assess the security concerns of this technology in organizations such as universities or hospitals. Identify additional areas of concern for organizations that implement a wireless LAN. Then, explain whether the implementation of a WAN would solve these problems. Explain your rationale.
• Rank the following IEEE 802.11 standard addresses in order of importance with the first one being the most important. Justify the reason for your chosen order.
• • Association
  • Re-association
  • Disassociation
  • Authentication

Classmates:

Analyze the characteristics of wireless LANs and assess the security concerns of this technology in organizations such as universities or hospitals. Identify additional areas of concern for organizations that implement a wireless LAN. Then, explain whether the implementation of a WAN would solve these problems. Explain your rationale.

The use of a wireless LAN system in hospitals has some benefits, to include: quick answers from doctors allowing for increased staff production, more efficient order and delivery of medications requiring fewer trips to the hospital, reduction of time spent researching medical records so caregivers can diagnose and treat patients more quickly, just to name a few. However, as with any technology, wireless LANs come with some concerns. Ensuring the security of hospital information, including sensitive patient data, is extremely important when setting up and maintaining the wireless network. Enabling encryption and authentication will effectively limit the vulnerability of data, but one of the easiest methods of maintaining security is requiring strong passwords and changing them on a regular basis.

In the case of hospitals and universities, a wireless LAN would perform better than a WAN. Because it covers a smaller area and serves fewer clients, a WLAN can focus more on optimizing speed and performance and it is better suited for hosting and moving files from one device to another. It is also possible to implement security protocols like WPA and WEP in WLAN, but it is not guaranteed. WAN adopts technologies from mobile telecommunications networks that are already suited for covering large areas. Because of this, implementing security protocols is a must. 

Rank the following IEEE 802.11 standard addresses in order of importance with the first one being th most important. Justify the reason for your chosen order. Association, Re-association, Disassociation, Authentication

The order of importance that I chose is:

1. Authentication- To ensure the integrity and safety of information, it is important to identify whom you're dealing with  and that the data you are receiving is trustworthy. Authentication can help establish trust between parties involved in transactions.Because wireless LANs have limited physical security to prevent unauthorized access, 802.11 defines authentication services to control LAN access to a level equal to a wired link. Every device must use authentication service before establishing a connection with another device that it will communicate with.

2. Association - Every device must initially invoke the association service with an access point before it can send information. The association maps a device to the network by way of an access point. A device can associate with only a single access point, but each access point can associate with multiple devices. Association is also a first step to allowing devices to be mobile.

3. Disassociation - Devices or access points may invoke the disassociation service to terminate an existing association. This service is a notification and neither part may refuse termination. Devices should disassociate when leaving the network.

4. Re-association - the re-association service enables a device to change its state of association. It enables a device to change its association from one access point to another. this keeps the network informed of the mapping between access point and devices as the device moves from one basic service set to another within an extended service set. Re-association promotes changing association attributes of an established association while the device remains associated with the same access point. The mobile device always initiates the re-association

References:

Coleman, D., Westcott, D. (2014) Certified Wireless Network Administrator. Indianapolis, Indiana. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Geier, J. (2001, Dec 6) Overview of the IEEE 802.11 Standard. Retrieved from http://www.informit.com