Wireless Security

Recently we have experienced an explosion in wireless LAN (WLAN) devices, these wireless LAN devices are now widely built in as components in other devices. Laptops have built in WLAN network cards and ADSL modems employ on-board WLAN access points. The level of convenience offered and ease of deployment of WLAN equipment has lead to configuration mistakes and oversights.

As WLAN technology offers many advantages over traditional wired networks unauthorised deployments have sprung up in corporate environments. These deployments may not be secured to corporate standards, in other cases policy may not extend to WLAN technology due to its novelty.

The situation is exacerbated by inherent flaws in the WEP protocol and the popularity of the well publicized war driving craze.

Risks

The risks revolve around the basic functionality of wireless networks. As potentially sensitive pieces of data travel through the air they may be received and interpreted by inexpensive wireless network cards. This gives rise to data leakage and interception which has privacy implications. Wireless access points which form the building blocks of wireless networks may be poorly configured with regard to security. They may provide rogue attackers in the vicinity access to your wireless network and any connected wired networks, effectively acting as a backdoor to your network.

Advantages

Wireless security services provide the means to discover, map, document and investigate your wireless infrastructure. Those devices which present risks to business such as unauthorised access to data can be highlighted and mitigating steps formulated. These services provide defences against rogue attackers sniffing confidential information from the air and using your wireless networking infrastructure as an illicit gateway into your network.

Wireless devices are discovered using war driving techniques leveraged by an in-house developed framework for maximum effectiveness. When a map of devices has been established a plan can be made to deal with unauthorised devices. Authorised devices can be secured to corporate standards using a common security baseline.