Wireless Network Security

— A Wireless Network is a wireless communication system that allows computers and workstations to communicate and exchange data with each other using radio waves as the transmission medium. WLAN is commonly referred to as “Wi-Fi” (wireless fidelity). Wireless local area networks give freedom to one move their laptops from one place to other within their offices and organizations without the need for wires and without losing network connectivity. Nowadays wireless networks are used in many areas such as in universities, healthcare-centers, hospitals, police departments, military and airports. Therefore, it is very important to enhance the network security in order to protect the information of the network. Different security protocols have been designed to protect the network, among which are WEP, WPA, and WPA2. Since air transmission is a defenseless medium, it gives opportunity to attackers to intercept the information that can be used to launch different types of attacks. Therefore, it is important to know different kind of security attacks at different layers in order to defend the wireless networks.