Recognizing and Combating Wireless Client Threats
Author/Blog Contributor - Chris Roeckl, vice president of marketing at AirMagnet
Date: July 06, 2010
Wi-Fi is not only critical to business, but is now a dominant and increasingly pervasive means of communicating in the office, in the home and on the road. Client devices, countless in number, go everywhere, connecting in all types of environments. Because of their dynamic nature, they are vulnerable, even when deployed with the strongest available security standards. Enterprises understand that they must secure the boundary between the inside and outside world. But, what they must recognize is that Wi-Fi increasingly acts as a connection point - or bridge - between that trusted inside network, users and data, and that outside world. And this bridge is literally in the air around us.
Many of today's organizations feel they have a strong grip on wireless security because they detect and root out rogue APs. While companies focus their security efforts on locking down and monitoring corporate APs, attackers are now directly targeting the enterprise's ubiquitous and most vulnerable assets - client devices. Enterprises must start thinking in terms of the same kind of end-to-end, defense-in-depth strategy that has characterized wired security since organizations first began deploying firewalls, antivirus and intrusion detection systems.
Unfortunately, wired security systems do little to protect against this over-the-air malicious traffic. Airborne traffic requires the same level of continuous monitoring and analysis as wire-bound traffic so IT managers can detect criminal activities that may threaten to expose corporate data. As enterprises rely more and more on wireless communications to service employees, partners and customers, they must adopt and leverage dedicated WIPS technology if they are to keep up with the mounting threats across the airwaves.
Interested in learning more about wireless client threats? Want expert advice on the best approaches to combating this wireless security challenge? Read our new in-depth white paper on the topic @ AirWISECommunity.com
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Review by PaulB for Rating: We bought this for one specific purpose. To see who is at the front door. Our porch is situated such that you can not see who is at the door from any window.Our other Electronic Devices: Wireless Internet and Cordless Phones. No issues with the camera/monitor or our other devices. Both the wireless and phones are 5.8Mhz which may be the reason we had no issue.Setup: I had the camera on a nail above the door in 5 minutes. Briefly skimmed the manual and we were off. We tested for a couple of weeks both in daylight and night to get the placement right. Note: If you are buying strictly for night vision…don’t. It doesn’t work more than a couple of feet. Our porch has a motion detection light in the ceiling so this works perfectly with the camera. We have tried the monitor sitting in the cradle, walking around the house and connected to the tv.Results: On our first test, my wife loved it. She was able to clearly see who was knocking. The range is pretty small and it does degrade rapidly with walls and doors between. Our setup is basically 20 feet from the camera through the front door and outside wall. Moving to a back room with 2 inside walls produced quite a bit of interference…we could see but the image would flake out every few seconds. We also do not use the sound activation since the camera is outside it picks up any noise on the lowest settings…For the price and ease of use…it fits our needs perfectly. It really depends on how you plan to use it, if it will work for you or not. If you need long range or strict night vision…this is definately not the system for you.
Review by PaulB for Rating: We bought this for one specific purpose. To see who is at the front door. Our porch is situated such that you can not see who is at the door from any window.Our other Electronic Devices: Wireless Internet and Cordless Phones. No issues with the camera/monitor or our other devices. Both the wireless and phones are 5.8Mhz which may be the reason we had no issue.Setup: I had the camera on a nail above the door in 5 minutes. Briefly skimmed the manual and we were off. We tested for a couple of weeks both in daylight and night to get the placement right. Note: If you are buying strictly for night vision…don’t. It doesn’t work more than a couple of feet. Our porch has a motion detection light in the ceiling so this works perfectly with the camera. We have tried the monitor sitting in the cradle, walking around the house and connected to the tv.Results: On our first test, my wife loved it. She was able to clearly see who was knocking. The range is pretty small and it does degrade rapidly with walls and doors between. Our setup is basically 20 feet from the camera through the front door and outside wall. Moving to a back room with 2 inside walls produced quite a bit of interference…we could see but the image would flake out every few seconds. We also do not use the sound activation since the camera is outside it picks up any noise on the lowest settings…For the price and ease of use…it fits our needs perfectly. It really depends on how you plan to use it, if it will work for you or not. If you need long range or strict night vision…this is definately not the system for you.
Chris Roeckl is the VP of Marketing at AirMagnet. Prior to AirMagnet, Roeckl served in executive roles at Fortinet, Infoblox, NetScreen Technologies and Inverse Network Technologies. He has also served as a technology analyst for the Robert Frances Group and as the editor for CommunicationsWeek.