As security concerns ease, businesses warm to Wi-Fi

Security fears have kept many large companies on the wireless-networking sidelines for the past two years, but new intrusion defenses are beginning to put the worst concerns to rest, opening the door to renewed corporate Wi-Fi spending.

Wi-Fi gained its reputation as an insecure protocol years ago, when hundreds of network access points were set up without basic security settings turned on. The result was a bonanza of free high-speed public Net access for anyone within range, and alarm on the part of businesses, who worried that such piggybacking pointed to the possibility of more serious breaches. Adding to the problem, Wi-Fi's original security standard used weak 40-bit encryption that's easily overcome by unsophisticated attacks, even when it's enabled.
"We have been making headway with...colleges, health care, warehouses and, more recently, retail and government," said Carl Blume, director of product marketing at Colubris Networks, which sells Wi-Fi gear to corporations. "We've been waiting for major Fortune 500 companies, but the perception that there is a security problem with Wi-Fi has been a problem."