Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Retail Wi-Fi Vulnerable to Hackers, AirDefense Study Reveals

Founded in 2001, AirDefense is based in Alpharetta, Georgia and is the market leader in anywhere, anytime wireless security. Thought of as a leader and innovator of wireless LAN security and operational support solutions, AirDefense is a serious tool for those wanting to monitor their wireless domain. AirDefense is trusted by many Fortune 500 companies, healthcare organizations, and high-security government agencies for enterprise wireless protection, but he company does not disclose the names of individual retailers to avoid drawing hackers' attention.

While retailers are almost nazi-like in securing their physical businesses to prevent theft, they take almost no precautions with their wireless security according to a recent AirDefense survey. - PC World

Consequences of the wireless security vulnerabilities found in AirDefense's "2007 Retail Shopping Wireless Security Survey" are difficult to quantify. As a collection of already published risks to wireless LANs, this white paper is written to inform IT security managers of what they are up against. Serious protection does come at a cost, starting at about $10000 in AirDefense's case. But with a report showing that 25% of retail wireless networks offer absolutely no encryption what so ever, the costs of having lacking protection are potentially far greater.

As an enterprise-class solution, AirDefense is highly scalable, which is very appealing to CIOs in need of cost-effective rollouts over many locations.

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