State of Affairs of Wireless Networks

Wireless Networks have become very common place in the recent past. Hotspots have come up in airports, coffee shops, hotels etc because the cost of setting up a wireless network has plummeted in the past few years. And add to it the convenience of having no wires snaking around the building. Wireless networks have gained so much popularity that there are millions of home networks set up and many of them are offering internet usage free for by-passers. However, companies are a little more skeptical than others to set up wireless networks in their offices. Their concern is justified because the security in wireless networks is not enough and a hacker can break their security with a little effort and free tools available from the Internet. In this paper, we talk about the fundamentals of wireless network, the built-in security (or in-security) that comes with those networks, some of the tools that can be used to audit the wireless network and finally discuss how to safeguard the network by deploying additional security.