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HITRON BVW-3653 USER’S GUIDE
WIRELESS
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IEEE 802.11n
6.1.4
SERVICE SETS AND SSIDS
Each wireless network, including all the devices that comprise it, is known as a
Service Set.
NOTE:
Depending on its capabilities and configuration, a single wireless access point
may control multiple Service Sets; this is often done to provide different
service or security levels to different clients.
Each Service Set is identified by a Service Set IDentifier (SSID). This is the name of
the network. Wireless clients must know the SSID in order to be able to connect to
the AP. You can configure the BVW-3653 to broadcast the SSID (in which case, any
client who scans the airwaves can discover the SSID), or to “hide” the SSID (in which
case it is not broadcast, and only users who already know the SSID can connect).
6.1.5
WIRELESS SECURITY
Radio is inherently an insecure medium, since it can be intercepted by anybody in the
coverage area with a radio receiver. Therefore, a variety of techniques exist to control
authentication (identifying who should be allowed to join the network) and encryption
(signal scrambling so that only authenticated users can decode the transmitted data).
The sophistication of each security method varies, as does its effectiveness. The
BVW-3653 supports the following wireless security protocols (in order of
effectiveness):
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WEP
(the Wired Equivalency Protocol): this protocol uses a series of “keys” or
data strings to authenticate the wireless client with the AP, and to encrypt data
sent over the wireless link. WEP is a deprecated protocol, and should only be
used when it is the only security standard supported by the wireless clients.
WEP provides only a nominal level of security, since widely-available software
exists that can break it in a matter of minutes.
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WPA-PSK
(WiFi Protected Access - Pre-Shared Key): WPA was created to
solve the inadequacies of WEP. There are two types of WPA: the “enterprise”
version (known simply as WPA) requires the use of a central authentication
database server, whereas the “personal” version (supported by the BVW-3653)
allows users to authenticate using a “pre-shared key” or password instead.
While WPA provides good security, it is still vulnerable to “brute force”
password-guessing attempts (in which an attacker simply barrages the AP with
join requests using different passwords), so for optimal security it is advised that
you use a random password of thirteen characters or more, containing no
“dictionary” words.
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WPA2-PSK
: WPA2 is an improvement on WPA. The primary difference is that
WPA uses the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) encryption standard
(which has been shown to have certain possible weaknesses), whereas WPA2
uses the stronger Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in the Counter mode
with Cipher block chaining Message authentication code Protocol (CCMP),
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