User's Manual

Encryption
This section provides an overview of encryption options. The most effective authentication options
available today are supported either through the Client Utility or by leveraging the Microsoft Wi-Fi
software implementations. For further information, see Client Utility Security Options.
Encryption protects wireless data from being intercepted and
deciphered during transmission, and thereby assures the security of
your data. The Client Adapter is compatible with the following options:
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) -- Excellent, financial-grade security
TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) -- Good security, used as an upgrade
to legacy systems
WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) -- Minimal protection security, acceptable for
non-critical data
Open or no encryption -- No protection, use for non-critical communications
or with other security protection such as https or VPN/IPsec for corporate
communications
The most effective encryption methods are part of the WPA (Wi-Fi
Protected Access) cipher suite and are recommended for all
environments in which security is an important consideration, whether
in the enterprise, small office or home. WPA provides much more
complete protection against discovery of encryption keys than do the
WEP standards. WPA itself has already spawned two generations of
encryption technology, with AES being the latest and most effective
standard. TKIP is the encryption protocol that was first introduced with
WPA, but it provides less complete protection than does AES.
The original 802.11 wireless communication specification standard
included WEP for wireless security. Still widely used today, WEP
security provides some security protection, but can be vulnerable to
attack. Use WEP in cases where the access point does not support
higher level security and security is a consideration in your network
design.
.The WEP algorithm requires an encryption key or keys to be used in
the encrypting and decrypting of data. The Client Utility uses 64-bit or
128-bit encryption keys, which may be specified in ASCII (text) or
hexadecimal (numeric) format:
ASCII keys must be 5 characters in length (64-bit) or 13 characters in length
(128-bit) Example: 64-bit:
mynm5 ; 128-bit: 17keycode1298
Hexadecimal keys must be 10 hex digits in length (64-bit) or 26 hex digits in length (128-bit),
where hex digits are in the range 0-9, a, b, c, d, e, f). Example: 64-bit:
55772abbcc ; 128-
bit:
12340987afcb45677fdc789045
The Client Utility supports as many as four WEP keys.
Page 26 of 36 Installation and User Guide: Wireless LAN Client