Securing Wireless Local Area Networks Based on IEEE 802.1x and X.509 Certificates

Deploying a secure WLAN is an especial challenge, because there are a number of extremely risks. These risks will have to be thwarted by the use of stronger security mechanisms while keeping an adequate level of network performance. The 802.1X authentication standard provides a method to protect the network behind the access point based on Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). Moreover, in order to strengthen the security solution, a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) scheme that uses X.509 certificates and Certificate Authority (CA) is added.