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SecureAire Supplicant

SecureAire Supplicant is a comprehensive embedded 802.11 client (supplicant) software package which implements IEEE 802.11's supplicant functionality and supports the latest wireless security standards including Wi-Fi� Protected Access (WPA�) and WPA2/IEEE 802.11i. The software is designed as a set of modular, application-agnostic components that deliver Wi-Fi security and standards-compliance. Besides providing the functionality of a full-fledged secure 802.11 client, its unique capability lies in its ability to make these services available to an embedded application in any domain through flexible APIs and configuration mechanisms, to make secure Wi-Fi connectivity a convenient add-on to any embedded device. SecureAire Supplicant is standards-based and can interoperate with other IEEE 802.11 compliant systems running on any platform or OS.

PDF datasheet

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Wireless Security

The use of a shared transmission medium -- airwaves with no well-defined physical boundary to be protected -- makes security a key issue in WLANs. Due to several deficiencies in the early 802.11 standard WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) security, the newer 802.11i standard and WPA2 is now implemented for most WLANs. Also, industry standards such as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) provide strong security while maintaining compatibility with legacy hardware. SecureAire Supplicant includes the latest wireless security technologies including 802.11i, as well as an implementation of WEP with static (104-bit or 40-bit) or dynamic keys which improves the security characteristics of the basic WEP functionality.

WPA / WPA2

SecureAire Supplicant includes support for Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and the newer WPA2, which are currently the most popular and robust security mechanisms in use with WLANs. SecureAire Supplicant supports 802.1x authentication with Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) which is a required part of the WPA standard in Enterprise mode. For environments without a Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) infrastructure, WPA offers the use of pre-shared keys (WPA-PSK), a feature built into SecureAire Supplicant. For data confidentiality, WPA defines the per-frame re-keying of the key used in unicast connections using the synchronized Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). For data integrity, WPA defines the use of a 4-byte "MIChael" message integrity code. SecureAire Supplicant includes full support for TKIP and MIChael, both of which can leverage legacy hardware. SecureAire Supplicant also includes AES support in the "CCMP" mode of operation which is optional in WPA and mandatory in WPA2 / 802.11i.

Features

	Fine-grain developer (API) control of wireless features
	Support for 802.11e/WMM
	Concurrently supports various generations of 802.11 security
	Support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 in Personal and Enterprise modes
	Roaming between different APs using multiple profiles
	Migration mechanism for BSD/madwifi drivers
	Royalty-free full source distribution

802.11 Framework

SecureAire Supplicant divides the 802.11 supplicant functionality into two areas to allow simplified development of new chipset drivers by leveraging common elements of the 802.11 protocol implementation:

	The generic 802.11 framework: includes common (device-independent) functionality of an 802.11 supplicant such as processing 802.11 management and data frames, key management and association to an access point (AP).
	802.11 driver: works with specific 802.11 hardware and configures the device to send/receive frames.

SecureAire Supplicant includes reference drivers for popular radio chipsets and also provides a template driver to aid in the development of new drivers.

SecureAire Supplicant Block Diagram