Secure 'no-wireless' zones now possible

Last year, hackers stole roughly 81.5 million records while carrying out more than 740 confirmed data breaches. Many of the attacks targeted household name brands, costing the global economy up to US$575 billion annually* and destroying consumer confidence - all while each company believed its data were secure. Many data breaches are now occurring by the breaching of Wi-Fi networks.

No organisation deliberately ignores security threats, but many believe their precautions are good enough. They rely on the security features of access points or other wireless infrastructure components, which are incapable of detecting all types of threats across every channel. The ‘good enough’ approach presents several challenges:

• Inadequate threat detection: Most access point security features perform only part-time scans of 44 standard Wi-Fi channels, when there are 201 non-standard extended channels where threats can hide.
• Lengthy threat update cycles: Access point solutions require firmware updates to respond to new threats, often taking months to release. They also require downtime to install, creating significant security gaps.
• Limited performance reporting: Many wireless security solutions provide only cryptic reporting that’s hard to decipher before taking action, increasing the burden on an already overloaded IT administrator.
• Minimal forensic analysis: It’s not enough to know a security breach has occurred. IT teams need detailed forensics to identify the root cause and eliminate it fast.
• Hidden monitoring gaps: Many wireless environments comprise multiple access point types and incompatible security features, creating holes in what the IT team believes is a comprehensive security system.

To combat this ever-growing threat, Fluke Networks has responded with a major upgrade to its AirMagnet Enterprise wireless security solution. With timely dynamic threat updates, location tracking and alerting of cellular or Wi-Fi devices, AirMagnet Enterprise is a wireless intrusion detection and prevention (WIDS/WIPS) solution that lets enterprises and agencies enforce a 24/7 ‘no-wireless’ zone.

As mobile data, mobile devices and security breaches continue their stratospheric climb, the ability to immediately identify all rogue wireless activities, regardless of network type, and enforce a ‘no-wireless’ zone is critical for organisations that deal with sensitive information and need to secure their vital data centres. AirMagnet Enterprise provides complete unified wireless (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) and cellular (3G, 4G LTE, CDMA) spectrum security across the entire wireless network infrastructure.

David Coffin, CTO of Fluke Networks, explained, “AirMagnet Enterprise’s improved event detection helps IT teams actively identify, locate and mitigate cellular and Wi-Fi security threats such as unauthorised cellular and Wi-Fi devices and jammers. It also enforces the implementation of a ‘wireless-free zone’. Security and network operations not only have to contend with the inherent dangers and performance impacts of BYOD on their networks, but also the very real risk of espionage, hacking and malicious attacks from inside or outside their corporate boundaries.”

AirMagnet scans all 245 Wi-Fi channels, protects against more than 230 threats, and rapidly identifies and reacts to security and performance problems. It also includes Dynamic Threat Update technology, which enables rapid response to new threat signatures, and an Automated Health Check (AHC) verifies the live client wireless environment for the entire WLAN connection path.

AirMagnet also offers remote forensic packet capture at the point of event trigger, which helps the rapid analysis of the packets that caused the alarm, and works in hybrid wireless architecture environments, which eliminates security gaps and integration issues between disparate access points.

*Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2014, Net Losses: Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime, http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-economic-impact-cybercrime2.pdf