Security warning flags for newer wireless technology

RSA, the security division of EMC, has completed its annual wireless survey, and the news is mixed. Wireless adoption is moving briskly in the post-WEP era, with advanced encryption gaining ground, yet there have been some minor setbacks.

There are also some potential warning flags for still-emerging wireless technologies, such as RFID.

The survey of London, New York, and Paris found that growth rates were strong, with significant uptake for advanced encryption, but with anywhere from one-fifth to one-quarter of business wireless networks in these cities being wide open. Interestingly, the use of default settings did not show dramatic change, at anywhere from a low of 13% in Paris to a high of 30% in London.

“Recent adopters tend to be more SMB-oriented,” says Toffer Winslow, RSA’s vice-president of product management and product marketing, suggesting this might explain the persistence of default settings. “But there are a lot of small firms out there with really valuable data.”