WLAN Security is still Work in Progress

Source: LinuxSecurity.com

IT managers are cautiously optimistic that wireless networks will - over time - become as secure as today's local area networks, but security concerns are still holding back deployment of the technology. Those are the main findings of a limited (but still informative) survey of IT security manager attitudes on the deployment of 802.11b (wireless) networks by security consultancy Defcom released this week.
The 20 senior IT security managers questioned by Defcom at a recent London event were optimistic on the future security of WLAN equipment. Ninety per cent believed that it will be as secure as regular LANs within the next three to five years. However nearly two thirds (60 per cent) of the IT security managers polled said that the main barrier to wireless networking growth is still the perceived lack of securit.

Wireless LAN sales growth remains strong. Recent research by Gartner Dataquest predicted worldwide WLAN shipments will grow by 73 per cent this year.

Defcom's findings should encourage both manufacturers and the Wi-Fi standards body to properly address the fears of many end-users. Replacing the previous encryption standard, WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy), with more robust WiFi standards Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a step in the right direction but IT security managers are still sceptical.

WPA uses a higher level of encryption and brings in dynamic key exchange functions absent with WEP. WPA is designed to work with existing products and is expected to first appear in Wi-Fi certified products during the first quarter of next year.

Eighty per cent of IT security managers questioned by Defcom said they did not trust the manufacturers of wireless networking solutions to provide security expertise, even after the announcement of WPA.