SECURITY FOR WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORK WITH PRE SHARE KEY AUTHENTICATION USING WI-FI PROTECTED ACCESS

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have become very popular due to their high data rates, cost effectiveness, flexibility and ease of use. On the other hand, they are facing major security threats due to the broadcast nature of the wireless media. So there are different security issues in the wireless communication. The security conventions intended for the wired system cannot be extrapolated to wireless systems. Hackers and intruders can make utilization of the loopholes of the wireless communication. This report defines the different remote security dangers to wireless system and conventions at present accessible like wired equivalent privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi protected access(WPA) and Wi-Fi protected access2 (WPA2) . WPA2 is more security convention as compared to Wi-Fi protected access (WPA) it utilizes the Advanced Encryption standard (AES) encryption. In order to eliminate threats and to improve security of wireless network to avoid these threats using the Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) protocol used to secure communications in Wireless Networks. It differs from the other solutions because it works in the three WLAN security levels. WEP/WPA2 encryption, AES, and strong 802.1x authentication are integrated into the solution to provide a high level of security against threats.