As the main secret-key encryption techniques of the wireless local area network (WLAN) have been proven to be unsafe, wireless network security is faced with serious challenges. It is unpractical for home users and small companies to buy expansive network equipments to improve the network security. Therefore, the secure strategy of wireless network needs to be changed. In this paper, we first introduce secure issues of the main secret-key encryption techniques currently adopted by the most popular commercial wireless routers. Then we propose a new strategy for small-scale IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network which can strengthen the network security. The new secure strategy is based on web authentication with unshared key and virtual local area network (VLAN) in wireless network. It can provide protection against practical attacks which are popular nowadays. Moreover, it is simple, wieldy and low-cost.

As the main secret-key encryption techniques of the wireless local area network (WLAN) have been proven to be unsafe, wireless network security is faced with serious challenges. It is unpractical for home users and small companies to purchase expensive network equipments to improve the network security. Therefore, the secure strategy for wireless network needs to be changed. In this paper, we first introduce secure issues of the main secret-key encryption techniques currently adopted by the most popular commercial wireless routers. Then we describe our initial designs and propose a new strategy for small-scale IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network which can strengthen the network security. The new secure strategy is based on web authentication with unshared key and virtual local area network (VLAN) in wireless network. It can provide protection against practical attacks which are popular nowadays. Moreover, it is simple, easy to use and price moderate. At last, we evaluate the performance of the new secure strategy and give our conclusions.