A Survey on Wireless Security

[souti2006]

Hello everyone,

 

 

I'm a student of Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK, pursuing MSc. Information Systems Security. The reason behind creating this post is I'm conducting a survey on wireless security.

 

 

I've created a simple questionnaire based on wireless security which is accessible through this link. Please take the survey and help me understand more closely what you guys think about securing wireless world and also it help me achieving the objectives of my coursework.

 

 

I promise, it won't take more than 5 min. of your valuable time. Moreover, I'll be very much grateful for your participation

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

Link: A Survey on Wireless Security

[pcstru]

Done, but there are a couple of 'issues'.

 

The "your install is a" - neglects that people may have multiple installs.

 

There is an error generated by a question that wasn't visible on the first form. I think that too can have multiple selections.

[souti2006]

Done, but there are a couple of 'issues'.

 

The "your install is a" - neglects that people may have multiple installs.

 

There is an error generated by a question that wasn't visible on the first form. I think that too can have multiple selections.

Thank you pcstru for submitting the survey and pointing out the issues. I'll look into it

[PhilipCoakes]

Agree with pcstru - whilst answering the questionnaire, I had to answer from the perspective of just one of the WLAN's I manage, which gives an incomplete picture. Many sites have multiple WLAN's for many very differing purposes, and so the security configuration / exposures are very different for each.

 

Good luck with the research!

[souti2006]

Agree with pcstru - whilst answering the questionnaire, I had to answer from the perspective of just one of the WLAN's I manage, which gives an incomplete picture. Many sites have multiple WLAN's for many very differing purposes, and so the security configuration / exposures are very different for each.

 

Good luck with the research!

Thank you PhilipCoakes for your submission and suggestion. As, right now I'm in the middle of this survey, it'll be very difficult for me to change the questionnaire.

 

Moreover, I'm totally agree with both of you guys and will correct such mistakes in my next survey.

 

Thanks to both of you for your cooperation and inputs.

[elsiegee40]

Not sure what the issue is. Fill the survey out more than once if you have more than one type of network.

[pcstru]

Not sure what the issue is. Fill the survey out more than once if you have more than one type of network.

 

Perhaps. But surveys generally struggle to get 1 in 10 to respond to them once, requiring people to respond multiple times (including a majority of duplicate answers) isn't going to improve the take-up rate!

[souti2006]

Yes pcstru, your logic is practical. This question is really to generic, I should've put more specific one.

[Destinova]

A couple of points:

 

This survey, at least to me, suggest the person who wrote the questions does not understand 802.11 or RF fundamentals at all, and this makes it difficult to answer.

 

Also, your use of the WiFi Alliance logo is in violation of copyright/trademark.

[souti2006]

A couple of points:

 

This survey, at least to me, suggest the person who wrote the questions does not understand 802.11 or RF fundamentals at all, and this makes it difficult to answer.

 

Also, your use of the WiFi Alliance logo is in violation of copyright/trademark.

Hi Destinova, thanks for your inputs. The point for the logo is accepted and removed. However, can you tell me precisely where do you face difficulties answering questions and what makes you think that the author of the questionnaire have no sense of understanding of 802.11 standards?

Edited April 16, 2013 by souti2006

[Destinova]

Here is where I ran into issues with this survey:

 

"Please rate how each configuration would negatively affect wireless security posture. *

 

Default Device IP Address - What does this mean? Devices do not come with a default IP address.

Disabled Encryption - Are you talking about using open authentication? You can have open authentication and still have encryption. Captive portal authentication using https for example. The traffic is encrypted, the wireless connection itself is not.

Disabled MAC Filtering - This is not a single item that is simply on, or off. This is a potential additional security feature that can be layered with your choice of authentication and encryption methods.

 

"Please rate the significance of the below measures in the context of improving wireless security."

 

Firewall - What kind of firewall? Host firewalls? Access Point firewalls? Client isolation on an individual access point? Network firewalls?

 

But my biggest issue comes with the question about encryption.

 

Implementing Encryption (TKIP, LEAP, WPA)

 

Only one of those three things is encryption - TKIP.

WPA is a protocol, not encryption. (See 802.11i)

LEAP is also a protocol, used for authentication, not encryption. It's also one of about 15 methods of EAP, and is proprietary to Cisco. See RFC 5247 - Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Key Management Framework

 

For example, one can use WPA and implement 802.1X, EAP and RADIUS for authentication, and TKIP for encryption. Smaller deployments or home networks may not use a strong authentication method and simply use PSK or pre-shared keys instead of 802.1X or EAP/RADIUS.

 

WPA2, still a protocol, not encryption - can use all of the above authentication methods and also TKIP or AES for encryption.

 

The key here is understanding the fundamental differences between authentication, and encryption (and associated encapsulation methods).

 

If you are going to me a MSc in InfoSec, one would assume you should have some in depth knowledge of the standards protocols and methods used in a modern (wireless) network.

 

Read some RFC's - they are boring as hell, but you'll learn more than you will from this survey.

[witch]

Done

[souti2006]

Hello everyone,

 

 

Thank you very very much for your participation in the survey and providing further inputs regarding how can I improve the survey contents in future.

 

 

Anyway, me and my group presented the survey methods, outcomes, problems, solutions and recommendtions and got good feedbacks from both the other groups and our lecturer.

 

 

If anyone of you are interested to view the contents of our slides then please click the below link to view/download the file:

A Survey on Wireless Security.ppsx

 

 

Thank you once again for your active participations.

 

 

Cheers