Every wireless-enabled laptop used within the enterprise has the potential to place proprietary systems and information at risk. With over 300 million wireless laptops in use and over 100 million more being sold each year, businesses are at risk, whether or not they have a wireless network. Through attack schemes known as Evil Twin and Wi-Phishing, hackers can exploit the automatic connectivity features standard in today’s popular Windows® wireless clients to gain access to information on laptops and breach corporate networks.
Today millions of employees leave the workplace with volumes of corporate data stored on laptops or other wireless devices. When employees connect to insecure networks— from home, at the coffee house, in the airport—or fail to use wireless security best practices, it can place sensitive data at risk. Complicating the security challenge is the reality that a simple connection of a wireless notebook to a wired network can open up an entry point into a company’s wired network, accessible by anyone with a wireless device (on a different floor, in the parking lot, or across the street), just as if they were seated at a desk in the office. Traditional wired network intrusion detection or intrusion prevention systems (IDS/IPS) are not capable of detecting this type of intrusion because it happens behind the firewall.
As businesses become increasingly dependent on wireless technologies for voice and data communications, the quality and reliability of wireless services becomes mission critical. Malicious or non-malicious denial-of-service attacks caused by interference in the Wi-Fi bands, from cordless phones, microwave ovens and other broadband radio devices, can severely impact wireless network performance or block service completely. In addition, network mis-configuration, equipment failures, and increasing bandwidth demands can cause network performance issues.
New methodologies are required to resolve network performance issues and meet the stringent security requirements of today’s organizations and industry mandates such as SOX, GLBA, HIPAA, and PCI.