Wireless Networks In Businesses
Sometimes implementing a wireless network inside a business place becomes necessary. Visiting managers may need a quick connection in a conference room; sales people sharing cubicles my need it as the number of work spaces get exhausted. Perhaps someone is going to set one up on your network anywayyou might as well control this from the beginning.
Apart from people who download infected software and e-mail attachments, mobile employees' notebook computers are usually viewed as a high risk source of unintentional malicious activity as there is even less control over what these employees do than those with fixed workstations. With this in mind, it is usually best to isolate this type of wireless network completely from your internal, trusted, and wired one. Some types of network architectures make the wireless router only have access to the Internet, and no where else, via its own dedicated DSL line. The wireless users then have to use some form of a VPN client to gain access to the office servers just as if they were doing so from home. To reduce the risk of the network being hijacked, be sure to encrypt the traffic and use a proxy server running such software as Squid (see Chapter 32, "Controlling Web Access with Squid") to limit Internet access to authorized users via some form of pop-up username and password authentication. With this sort of architecture, if the wireless network gets hijacked, your office systems should remain relatively safe.
Many WAPs have the option of not advertising their ESSIDs, which prevents users from browsing around to select the nearest available WLAN. Activation of this feature can be inconvenient to users as wireless clients will need to know the predefined ESSID to gain LAN access, but more importantly, reduces the risk of an outsider connecting to your wireless LAN by roaming the airwaves for an available WAP. Your WAP may also have the additional security feature of only allowing connections from a list of predefined MAC addresses of all the wireless NICs in your company or department. The more expensive ones have the ability to refer to a database server for this information.
There are many other types of wireless methodologies. Please investigate a variety of options before coming to a final conclusion.
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