Wi-Fi app alerts admins to intruders

Wi-Fi app alerts IT managers to intruders

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Start-up Newbury Networks announced a new application it says will help IT managers keep wireless networks secure.

The Boston, Mass.-based company said Tuesday that its WiFi Watchdog application will alert IT managers when an intruder is accessing a company's 802.11b network and will prevent the intruder from doing so. The software also pinpoints where an intruder is within 5 feet and allows IT managers to more effectively direct which parts of a network's coverage is active.

For example, if a wireless network's coverage extends to the company parking lot, a manager can restrict access to the network from the parking lot.

"One of the great aspects of wireless networks is their range, but it's also one of the chief vulnerabilities," said Chuck Conley, vice president of marketing at Newbury Networks. "We want to give some of the manageability back to the IT manager."

"The market for wireless networks is growing...further security measures can only help to put managers' minds at ease," said Will Strauss, an analyst with research firm Forward Concepts.

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Newbury Networks

802.11b needs all the security it can get. Hopefully this program will help out admins in securing their wireless networks.

Neat.

Security is one of the major roadblocks to implementing wireless on my network. Most of the security issues can of course already be corrected by using a radius server with EAP TTLS authentication enabled. That way, your authentication packets, and network key exchange, etc, are encrypted with 128 bit encryption which is completely seperate from WEP which has the well known vulnerabilities. EAP TTLS uses a system very similar to methods used on the web(https). This is much better than EAP TLS, which requires client side certificates, which can be a bear to maintain.

This product would be cool, but, if I can't convince my place to go for a several thousand dollar radius setup, with the proper access points and cards, etc.. I surely won't get them to go for a $20,000 plus location based solution like this one.

Oh well.

IchNiSan