Kenneth C. Laudon,Jane P. Laudon Management Information System 12th Edition pdf

unified threat management (UTM) 

systems. Although

initially aimed at small and medium-sized businesss, UTM products are avail-

able for all sizes of networks. Leading UTM vendors include Crossbeam,

Fortinent, and Check Point, and networking vendors such as Cisco Systems and

Juniper Networks provide some UTM capabilities in their equipment.

SECURING WIRELESS NETWORKS

Despite its flaws, WEP provides some margin of security if Wi-Fi users remem-

ber to activate it. A simple first step to thwart hackers is to assign a unique

name to your network’s SSID and instruct your router not to broadcast it.

Corporations can further improve Wi-Fi security by using it in conjunction with

virtual private network (VPN) technology when accessing internal corporate

data.

In June 2004, the Wi-Fi Alliance industry trade group finalized the 802.11i

specification (also referred to as Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 or WPA2) that

replaces WEP with stronger security standards. Instead of the static encryption

keys used in WEP, the new standard uses much longer keys that continually

change, making them harder to crack. It also employs an encrypted authentica-

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Chapter 8

Securing Information Systems 

317

tion system with a central authentication server to ensure that only authorized

users access the network.

ENCRYPTION AND PUBLIC KEY INFRASTRUCTURE

Many businesses use encryption to protect digital information that they store,

physically transfer, or send over the Internet. 

Encryption

is the process of

transforming plain text or data into cipher text that cannot be read by anyone

other than the sender and the intended receiver. Data are encrypted by using a

secret numerical code, called an encryption key, that transforms plain data into

cipher text. The message must be decrypted by the receiver.

Two methods for encrypting network traffic on the Web are SSL and S-HTTP.