WLAN's Future
Posted by Chia-Chee Kuan, CTO at AirMagnet
Date: April 01, 2010
We recently participated in a Thought Leadership Summit on Webtorials with other WLAN vendors. Wade Williamson, our director of product management, did a great job summarizing (as did our competitors) upcoming advancements in WIPS as related to threats, and I wanted to take a moment to quickly recap some of his comments and expand on some thoughts in other areas of security and performance, as it pertains to the future of WLAN.
Adding to Wade's comments, as one would expect, WIPS/WIDS vendors work hard to stay in line or ahead of the hacking community. With a variety of new exploits, hacks and vulnerabilities (like Karmetasploit, TKIP vulnerabilities, virtual APs, etc.) this job has become more challenging than ever. In addition, Wi-Fi applications in the enterprise, and other sectors, are trending from convenience to operationally mission critical. This trending demands that wireless data integrity and network reliability be delivered at the highest levels possible. To meet the associated security challenges, AirMagnet has, over the past several years, dedicated an internal research team to analyzing security threats (keeping our company and our customers best protected). As a Wi-Fi industry security advocate and solution innovator, we will continue to win the wireless intrusion battle against the hacking community.
Today, we want enterprises to understand that they can confidently deploy WLANs and trust that their data security needs are being met when they leverage the best WIDS/WIPS solutions on the market - and combine them with best practices. An organization resisting WLAN deployments (and the numerous benefits) for fear of security risks, should revisit the current state of 802.11 standards and the associated wireless security solutions available to them, which have advanced dramatically. In addition, those organizations that fully embrace WLANs, but are doing so without corresponding wireless security measures in place, need to take a step back and realize that they're putting their entire organization at risk by not implementing a WIPS/ WIDS solution.
As the future of WLANs continues toward mission critical applications, such as patient care in healthcare, automotive manufacturing, assembly-line automation, voice communication, and more, wireless network reliability is no less important than security (they are two sides of the same coin). A poorly managed WLAN with intermittent availability is essentially a self-induced denial-of-service attack. In today's organization, a wireless network outage can mean huge productivity setbacks and sometimes, irreversible damages, especially in healthcare applications.
Just like in the case of wireless network security, wireless network reliability for mission critical network operations can be obtained by also leveraging the best WLAN management solutions and best practices. AirMagnet has been researching and innovating for nearly a decade to help promote and refine the WLANs of today, and to ensure we meet the requirement of tomorrow's WLAN. We believe wireless network reliability and predictability is a science and not a myth. And, it's tied closely to IT best practices, including pre-deployment planning followed by post-deployment survey; 802.11 protocol analysis matched with spectrum analysis; on-demand troubleshooting supported by 24x7 Wi- Fi management; passive monitoring enhanced by active testing; walk-about scanning replaced by automated scripting; single purpose wireless tools graduating to integrated multi-purpose solution; and more.
In summary, WLANs will continue to shape organizational productivity as we move forward. The speed of enterprise adoption will depend greatly on the confidence these organizations have in wireless network security and reliability, as related to operating mission critical business application. At AirMagnet, we believe our team has created the most compelling set of tools and solutions designed to deliver to organizations a level of confidence and a methodology by which they can operate their wireless networks effectively and securely.
What kind of tools does AirMagnet use to test its WiPS ? Are these commercial tools, in-house build or FOSS ? If commercial, which brand ?
TIA
It is critical to develop and test WIPS system against real world attack tools as well as theoretical vulnerabilities, which have no available tools to exploit. For the former, AirMagnet uses the actual attack tools to emulate real attacks. To speed up repeated testing and ensure consistencies, we also have to create our own tools or take advantage of available general purpose wireless tools to facilitate the process. For the latter (theoretical vulnerabilities), we have no choice but to create our own tools. It is interesting to note that often the effort to recreate attacks, no matter theoretical ones or not, is as challenging as, if not more than, developing the WIPS attack signatures. Many attacks involve 802.11 link layer protocol manipulation. In order to do so, an attack tool developer will need to get into the WLAN radio driver or even firmware to make modifications, which makes it technically hard and time consuming.
As to commercially available tools, AirMagnet has not relied on them for they are limited in number and functionalities when it comes to wireless.
Mr. Kuan, thanks I appreciate your answer.
Chia-Chee Kuan is CTO and co-founder of AirMagnet. Chia-Chee will contribute his expertise on technology, security vulnerabilities, and future trends in the WLAN industry.