Wireless Windows

Microsoft Windows now has a host of features to support current best practice in secure wireless networking. Perhaps the most important of these is support for RADIUS authentication. RADIUS can be used to authenticate users to the wireless network, but can also be used to require wireless access points to authenticate to the wired network. This means that rogue users and hackers cannot simply plug an access point into the network anymore, making wardriving and walking the perimeter with NetStumbler last decade's history.

The technology is based on the IEEE 802.1a remote authentication standard. Microsoft has made it easy to implement it by packaging Windows Server with a new Wireless Network Policies Group Policy management extension tailored for wireless network management. There's much to be learned about the new infrastructure. IT engineers and managers, security professionals, and auditors can hit the books at Microsoft Technet's Wireless Networking resource center.