No WLAN? You still need wireless security
It was nearly impossible to traverse a significant part of the show floor at this year's Networld+Interop without encountering solutions that dealt with the thorny issue of wireless security.
Indeed, when it comes to the threat matrix associated with wireless security, there are many issues demanding attention: everything from keeping unauthorized wireless users off wireless local area networks (WLANs) to making sure that the traffic flowing through a WLAN is encrypted in a way that keeps the payloads safe from prying eyes.
Although most wireless security solutions target organizations that have deployed wireless networks, there is a class of solutions that target all companies--even those that haven't deployed wireless networks. These solutions detect the existence of rogue access points. (An access point is a transceiver that connects devices on a wireless LAN to the wired infrastructure. A rogue access point is not authorized by an organization's IT department for operation.) Setting up an access point is child's play. In addition to plugging the access point into a power source, all one has to do is connect one end of an Ethernet cable to an available Ethernet port, connect the other end to an access point and voila! A new Wi-Fi WLAN is born.
