Wireless Vulnerabilities Are the Greatest Threats to Corporate Network
AirPatrol CEO Nicholas Miller said wireless vulnerabilities are the greatest Internet-related threat to all corporate networks. The statement was made within the Interop/CSI SX Conference from Las Vegas, at the Computer Security Institute’s CSI CX conference and was subsequently picked up by DarkReading. According to Miller, the rapid growth of wireless networking has generated an unprecedented increase in threats caused by wireless vulnerabilities.
“The problem is that wireless vulnerabilities don’t just expose the user who’s unaware of them, but the whole corporate network the user is attached to.”
A large number of companies are nowadays moving towards a wireless infrastructure to save money and reduce current infrastructure. But according to Miller, this move exposes them to greater risks, given that the wireless environment is known to harbor old vulnerabilities that are yet to be resolved.
Wireless infrastructure vendors offer some security capabilities, “but they are really looking for rogue access points, which is a tiny issue compared to the total problem associated with laptop security,” he said. “You really need to look at the entire network — you need to secure the endpoints.”
The problem with most wireless technologies is that they don’t account for the end user’s location, Miller said. “All of a sudden people can have access to the network as if they were in the building, which is why we need location-based access in wireless. Any wireless product you’re looking for should have that capability. If a hacker wants to break into the network, they should have to break into the building.”
