3. Authentication

In a wireless network environment, authentication is one of the most critical services. For an operator, the challenge is to prevent fraudsters from connecting to the network, and to protect legitimate subscribers from identity theft. For a private network, the challenge is to prevent third-party access to corporate applications, and in particular the theft of confidential information, industrial secrets...

Authentication solutions for 802.11 networks have evolved considerably over the last ten years. Initially, the standard provided for free access to the access point (without authentication), or authenticated access using a pre-shared key (PSK). These two historical access solutions are presented in 3.1