Slide 16.16: Wireless networks (cont.)   Slide 16.18: Mobile payment methods   Home

Mobile Security

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Mobile security is to protect information and prevent unauthorized system access. It is challenging to implement security in small-footprint devices with low processing power and small memory capacities and that use unreliable, low-bandwidth wireless networks. Major wireless technologies have their own approaches to security.

LAN Standard The IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard is rapidly gaining popularity. As the figure shows, sales will increase to 3.9 million by 2004. The technology's security mechanism is the WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) protocol.

WAP
The WTLS (Wireless Transport Layer Security) protocol, which provides authentication, data integrity, and privacy services within wireless technologies' limited processing power, memory capacity, and bandwidth.

Other Approaches

• PKI (Public-Key-Infrastructure): The mechanism provides a set of technologies that relies on encryption and digital certificates.
• Smart cards: Users can store PKI-based authentication information in smart cards that they can insert into a device-mounted reader.
• VPNs (Virtual Private Networks): They provide security by creating an encrypted tunnel through the public Internet.
• Firewalls: A WAP gateway can serve as the single point of entry for an enterprise's wireless systems.