Wireless Security Part 2

00:05

a lot of time for a concern with wireless devices on the network and making sure that users are authenticated. Making sure data that is transmitted is encrypted.

00:14

Our focus is on making sure the users are the right users to ultimately prevent malicious entities on the network. We don't often think about how much trust we should have in our access points.

00:25

I'm used to providing my username and a password to authenticate to an access point.

00:29

But where do I really get assurance at the access point is a legitimate access point. We have these issues with what are referred to as rogue access points. Maybe you're at a Starbucks, and I can create an access point with an S S i D

00:41

or coffee shop WiFi. If you're not specifically looking for Starbucks or the Starbucks device was down or if I were closer to you,

00:49

my S s I d would appear at the top of your list. Many times people just click and join the first network. That makes sense. You'll see this in airports or when travelling, you'll see free airport WiFi or free hotel guest be very suspicious unless you've been specifically told the name of the access point. And you can verify that even if that's the case, we still have the risk of that device being what we refer to as an evil twin.

01:11

An evil twin is the type of rogue access point, but it has the s s idea of the legitimate access point.

01:19

It's very easy to configure an S s i d. And there's no process to make sure that there is no other s s idea of the same name.

01:26

What's going to happen is, once you connect to a network into a specific S s i d. By default, your network card will connect to that same S s I. D. And again when it's available.

01:36

If I know the access point at your work for your WiFi network, create an access point with that exact same name and come closer to you than the organizational access point. You're likely to going to connect my device. And that's a classic man in the middle attack. It's so so easy to get users to use rogue access points when that's the case. None of the other stuff about authentication matters because all your data is coming through my system.

01:59

We really want to be concerned about the fact that many times we can't really get an assurance that the access point is the correct access point. What we should have in our environment is the use of certificates that are going to allow devices like access points, DNS servers and other devices to authenticate the clients.

02:15

You prefer mutual authentication, all authenticate to the access point. But that access point needs to provide a certificate of some other assurance that it's the legit point that I want to connect to.

02:29

The reason that doesn't happen is because there's a lot of overhead, a lot of time involved in managing anything that uses certificates. But these rogue access points and evil twins continue to be an issue.

02:38

One of the better methods from mitigating these risks is to constantly scan the network for your devices and know how many access points should be connected and be alerted If there's an additional access point added to the network,

02:51

it's about consistent monitoring and doing our best to stay on top of these potential security issues.

02:57

Let's wrap up our section on wireless security.

03:00

We know that we have an additional challenge with securing wireless communications that we do when data is confined to a cable. But I primarily think about encryption. We have our choices of WP WP a and W P A. To now W P. A three is out but hasn't made it onto the exam yet, so we don't need to worry about that right now.

03:19

With authentication, we think about centralized authentication through the A standard of 82.1 X

03:24

that's also sometimes known as the AP over Elian. And it requires that we bring in a central authentication server like a radius server, to provide a localized or centralized point of authentication and policy.

03:38

Last but not least, we talked about some common threats. We talked about rogue access points, in particular a very difficult Type two detective Rogue access points known as an evil twin and has the same name as a legitimate access point. And then N. D. E s network device. Enrollment support

03:54

is a protocol that allows devices like access points and other servers to enroll in certificates that they can use for authentication.

04:01

So that's a good mitigating strategy.