More and more people and businesses are taking their work and information with them on the road and being mobile. The use of wireless technologies such as WLANs and wireless 3G cellular networks is everywhere. It is estimated that about 90% of laptops in use today are capable of Wi-Fi usage.
The increase is wireless usage and demand has not been met however with an increase in security. Outdated security policies and protocols are in use in today’s wireless networks. New attacks are emerging, but most of the security measures taken are more of a reactive approach versus being proactive and releasing new security protocols to prevent these types of attacks.
Most companies that utilize WLANs in their infrastructure fail to realize that a security policy overlaid with security measures is needed to protect the network. Many companies simply implement WEP for security and then forget about their wireless security needs. Most security threats today come from inside the network. So a security policy must stress the importance of security over wireless technology to their employees. Security training should take place and it should give the employees a basic understanding of what is at stake and the realistic threat that a wireless network can pose if not secured properly. Then the system administrators can concentrate on updating their infrastructure to meet today’s wireless security demands.