Borrowing a neighbor's unsecured Wi-Fi signal could be against the law. Or it might be legal. The law is unclear, said cyberlawyer Mark Rasch.
"We have new technology and an old law. The law neither expressly prohibits it, nor expressly permits it," Rasch said.
Businesses are embracing WLAN for many reasons, most commonly for the convenience it offers. No need for wires gives employees the freedom to work in common areas or from hard to reach places. Employees are also finding the convenience of remote working using WLAN from home and public hotspots. An increasing number of enterprises are even forgoing a wired infrastructure completely, and relying upon wireless connections.
In the previous two installments (part one, part two) of this series, I've discussed the types of attacks your wireless network is subject to see and some techniques you can use to pen-test your WLAN. In this final part, I'll look at ways to mitigate the risks I've outlined in the previous parts of the article and spend a bit of time looking at some proposed solutions currently in front of the IETF.
The steady growth of Wi-Fi in the enterprise demands that corporate IT teams learn and adopt new security methodologies tailored to the unique requirements and weaknesses of wireless networks. Network and security staff must first evaluate a potentially confusing set of authentication and encryption mechanisms to be used in the network. Depending on the security selected, IT will then need to establish and document the corporate WLAN security policy, including mechanisms to validate user compliance and monitor for inherent network vulnerabilities.
When wireless networking first kicked off in the corporate world a couple of years ago, I honestly thought the concept of loitering outside with a Wi-Fi portable scrumping for free access would be incredibly short-lived.
While the idea of using Pringles tins for accurate targeting or war-chalking regions of free access was undeniably exciting, the sad fact was that the number of open corporate networks I'd found could be counted on one hand. This was in central London and believe me, not for the lack of trying.
Despite a lot of recent attention, the wireless broadband technology WiMax is years away from wide use--and will take root in Europe and Asia before spreading to U.S. shores, according to a report.
More than 7 million subscribers worldwide will get wireless broadband access from carriers selling WiMax services by the end of 2009, according to a report released this week by research firm Parks Associates. Carriers will start with equipment using the fixed version of WiMax, which means the service will initially be available only to subscribers in homes and businesses.
Networking-equipment maker D-Link announced on Thursday two new antennas that will increase the range of wireless networks established by D-Link's consumer-targeted Wi-Fi gear. The company said the $29.99 ANT24-0400 2.4GHz Omni-Directional and the $39.99 DWL-M60AT 2.4GHz Directional antennas are available and can be used with select D-Link 802.11b- and 802.11g-based gear.
Industry sources said the IEEE 802.11i specification could be ratified this Thursday, adding a needed layer of security to the Wi-Fi standard.
Sources said the draft specification is on the agenda to be ratified this week as part of an IEEE-SA standards committee meeting in Piscataway, N.J. One source said that although a vote on the proposed specification is not guaranteed, a decision to end the three-year standards process is likely.
Large enterprises are aware of -- and are taking action to prevent -- potential security threats to their wireless LANs, according to a survey released Thursday by iGillottResearch.
The survey of 804 IT managers working for large enterprises found that 86 percent of the companies have deployed WLANs. Only two percent of those networks are unsecured, the survey found.
Farms of the not-too-distant future could be managed through wireless computer networks that allow farmers to sit in their pickups with a laptop and drive tractors, monitor soil moisture and even feed the hogs remotely.
Urban professionals have long been able to go to a Starbucks cafe or some other Wi-Fi Hot Spot to connect to the Internet, but the technology has lagged in rural areas, where many folks still rely on a slow-speed dial-up connection.
