8:0 to 11 networks just by their wireless nature are some of the most insecure networking technologies
out there.
Now just the fact that you've got a bunch of radios broadcasting all your data assures us that an unprotected
1:52 11 network can really really get into a lot of trouble.
Now we've got a bunch of episodes that we're going to be talking about wireless networks but what I'd
like to do first is do a quick review of some critical terms.
A typical 10:42 network using infrastructure mode begins and ends with a wireless access point a wireless
access point is a bridge between an 10:42 network and an ethernet network.
So the wireless access point not only has radios to talk on the radio to get inside but an Ethernet
Connection to talk to an Ethernet Network.
Every wireless access point has a MAC address built into it just like any other type of device.
What we do is we take this wireless access point.
We configure it with what is known as a service set identifier or SS ID.
This can be a phrase or a term.
Now generally this SS ID is broadcast out to the wireless network area and we associate the MAC address
of the wireless access point with the SS ID that we've configured with that and created what's known
as a basic service set identifier or VSS ID.
Now what I'm going to do is add a client to this.
So here's my wireless client.
Now he wants to connect to this access ID.
So he's going to send a request to the wireless access point.
And if it's an open network the wireless access point will automatically authenticate him and that client
becomes a part of the associated list.
So that's listed by the clients MAC address over at the wireless access point.
Now let's move the client out of the way for a minute and concentrate on the web.
Now if I only have one whap with one SS ID we have a B S ID but for larger networks we can add one to
three as many as you want wireless access points and as long as all of these wireless access points
are connected to a common Ethernet broadcast domain they become what is known as an extended service
set identifier or s as ID as a client moves from one wireless access point in the SS ID to another it
authenticates and de authenticates as it moves from one weap to the next.
The only downside to what I've just shown you is that there is no authentication and there is no encryption.
So anybody with a wireless NIC can get on to this.
SS ID equally anybody who's within Radio Range can listen in and watch everything that you're doing
on the wireless network.
Now the people who invented 10:42 knew this from the get go and it vetted a one stop shopping standard
called Wired Equivalent Privacy that would provide basic authentication and encryption wireless equivalent
privacy or WEP is based on the RC for streaming protocol so it uses an initialization vector like all
streaming protocols do.
It uses a shared key concept which would either be 64 bit or 128 bits.
You generate this key on the wireless access point generally and then you would pass that key out to
anybody who you wanted to connect.
Now the downside to Web is that there were a bunch of terrible limitations to the way the initialization
vector was used and it didn't take them very long at all to come up with ways to be able to hack a WEP
encrypted network just mathematical You didn't have to do anything or try pass codes or anything you
just watch long enough and you would get that key.
This put everybody into a panic and generated a brand new world of something called Wireless protected
access
Oh it was a great time to be a tech.
Back around 2001 we are all excited about this new video to live in standard with its built in web authentication
and encryption.
And then we suddenly discovered that it was completely crackable everybody's in a panic.
Now the 10:42 folks got together and said you know what we're going to do we're going to come up with
a new standard that is both going to be able to handle good authentication as well as good encryption.
And what they did is they came up with the standard known as to 11.
So 8 to 11 I covers two big areas.
First in terms of authentication we're not going to worry about just sharing a key.
I guess some people on like a poor man's network if they still want to do that way they'll support it.
But the idea with a low to 11 eye is that we would now use 8:0 2.1 X authentication 2.1 X had already
been around for while it was used and radious servers and stuff like that.
And they were just going to bring that into a wireless network.
So what you would do is you would then install into your wired network a big radius server that would
have usernames and passwords or it could talk to your domain controller or it would have certificates
or RSA or whatever you wanted to use.
And that way whenever you logged in you'd have to not only try to connect a network but you actually
have to type in a username and password or insert a smart card or whatever it might be.
So you know 2.1 X was great although remember with 10:42 I they still allowed for those few people who
might want to do it to be able to still use something called a pre-shared key.
Now the other thing that 10:42 I pushed was completely dumping the concept of RC 4 and instead replacing
it with a very robust very powerful abs encryption.
Now yes encryption is powerful stuff.
In fact back around 2001 that was a bit of a problem because our already established wireless access
points and Pnyx simply couldn't handle.
Yes.
So the powers of the ATO to 11 world's lynxes and folks like that they all got together and said OK
we can't handle 10:42 I now in fact it wasn't until it was certainly after 2006 don't hold it to me
when 10:42 I finally came out as a standard.
But the industry got together and said What can we do right now.
Well they realized that it is trivial to go ahead and update existing hardware to be able to handle
ATO 2.1 X. That was the easy part the hard part was to get existing Nix and wireless access points to
be able to support a yes.
So the industry got together and said OK OK OK what we're going to do is we're not going to use 8 Yes
at least not till the standard comes out.
What we're going to do is we're going to replace REPP with something called T-Clip.
Now T-Clip still uses RC 4 but basically it improves the problem with the initialization vector and
pretty much gets rid of it.
Now this isn't a standard so the industry got together and decided to call it wireless protected access
or WPA and WPA was fantastic and it worked really really well until a few years later when people began
to realize that they're going to have to update their hardware.
So a whole new class of hardware came out that was fully 8:0 to 11 standard except nobody is talking
about 8 to 11.
Everybody's talking about WPX.
So this whole class of robust 10:42 hardware was known not as 10:42 standard but instead as W P A 2.
So the whole idea with WPA to simply means that it's going to be completely 8:0 to 11 standard.
Now these times as we were watching these changes from 2001 to 2006 make for some interesting stuff
a lot of times you'd be going into a wireless access point and you'd be trying to make configuration
and all of a sudden they wouldn't use the term WPA or WPA to on some of these older ones.
Instead they say stuff like T-Clip or s.c MP CC and P is simply the way 8:0 2:11 networks use ABS encryption.
So we've got this world where we have WEP we have WPA and we have WPA too now with WPA and WPA too you
can use full blown 8:0 2.1 X authentication with radius servers or if you want to you can still use
P S K or pre-shared keys so you can go either way with those.
What's interesting about this and part of the reason I'm going through all this information is because
you would think something like weap which we have known now for 15 years or more is bad that people
wouldn't be using it anymore.
Well you would be shocked what's out there.
Even here in Houston Texas we've had organizations go out and do surveys particularly in the industrial
commercial world to find as much as 15 percent of every network out there today is still using WEP.
Not even talk about WPA versus WPA 2.
So as we go through all of these episodes I want you to keep in mind the old stuff may sound old but
it's still out there.
In.