Security Design for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)

Wireless networking is rising with the ever-increasing need for businesses to
lower costs and support mobility of workers. Compared with wired networking, wireless
capability offers more timeliness, affordability, and efficiency. When performing
installations, there are many tangible cost savings with using less wire between the user's
appliance and a server. However, most of the organization that decided to deploywireless
network within their working environment often overlooked the security aspect of the
deployed wireless LAN. Therefore, this will jeopardize the organization's safety in terms
of network security and business trade secrets if their network is intruded by their rivals.
This project concentrates on Wireless Local Area Network architecture and the security
aspect of the designed network. Firstly, the project will emphasizes on researching about
WLAN architecture. This is to ensure best practice method to be taken in designing the
WLAN. It is then followed by extensive research to deploy better security to the designed
network. However, the security aspect to be deployed is based on the needs and the
architecture of the WLAN. The designed network is tested by conducting similar
simulation at the lab which represents real - time performance and situation where the
network architecture will be implemented and tested. For the time being, 802.IX / EAP
( Extensible Authentication Protocol ) is proven to be the best practice solution to secure
any Wireless LAN implemented. Through the simulation, it will be proven that the
proposed WLAN design is secure for implementation by any other interested parties.