Wide open wireless?
- Article 1 of 3
- The Agile Workforce, April 2002
Wireless networking may offer attractive benefits to organisations – but it also offers attractive opportunities to hackers.
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Further good security measures, adds Whitehouse, include good network filtering, systems and network monitoring, log retention, multi-factor authentication and encryption, and a set of business-driven security policies and procedures identifying potential security threats.
Whitehouse also recommends using a VPN over the wireless network to add a second layer of encryption and authentication, something with which Daniel Fuller-Smith of Toshiba's server business agrees. “Security is constantly being posted as a show-stopper by the cynics, but there is so much development going on in this area that there are few situations where wireless communications present any more security risk than a hard-wired network. Innovations like dynamic encryption, firewall equipped hardware, watertight authentication and VPNs mean peace of mind coupled with vastly increased productivity,” he claims.
McNab agrees that it is possible to have good control over a wireless network by dedicating as much attention to it as to a wired network that is open to the outside world. “By deploying firewalls and VPN gateways on the wireless segment that authenticate users, good control over the network can be realised. Authentication can be improved by using 'two-factor' products such as RSA SecurID or Secure Computing's Safeword. Even single sign-on can be realised by using x.509 digital certificates across the wireless infrastructure and accessible servers that are protected by VPN gateways and firewalls,” he says. While Bluetooth is relatively insecure, its bigger brother Wi-Fi is capable of utilising almost the full range of security tools from the wired world.
Still, until organisations educate themselves about the security options available to them, and fight to counteract complacency within IT departments, Chris Potter, information security partner at consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, says he will remain uneasy about wireless technologies. “Roughly 8% of large UK businesses are currently using wireless networks, but less than half are encrypting their wireless network traffic. This is a potential security time bomb,” he says.
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