Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Tackle Wi-Fi Security Issues Proficiently

by: Susan Brown

In today’s world, Wi-Fi has become a convention and as a matter of fact, many big business giants are coming forward for offering service and gadgets for wireless communication. As an immediate effect, certain security issues have been emerged as by-products of this technological revolution. Here are seven of these security issues that demand diligence of the user:

Data Incursion: with advanced technology, it’s now quite easy for the secret agents to steal data from Wi-Fi connections. Data can be stolen from more than a hundred meters distance. For combating such incidents, all Wi-Fi certified products now come up with a built-in encryption for ultimate data protection. The older versions of most of the gadgets that come up with TKIP which is quite open to data stealth cases. Therefore, it’s required to adopt AES-CCMP instead of TKIP.

Service Refutation: in many cases, WLANs are naturally quite open to DoS. The density of certain unlicensed frequencies within the periphery of a whole lot of users makes way to data leakage to the ultimate. But it is good news for the users that as 802.11n protocol has already come into effect, individual’s communication and data transfer can be put into a range of channels but the peril of DoS is still there. To prevent this attack, opt for newer products that come with 802.11w protocol.

Corrupted APS: network infiltration by anonymous and illegal APs is a big threat to Wi-Fi security. But, the majority of enterprises now use genuine APs to scan channels for data protection of the connection. But most lacks the standard of skills required to trace the true threats. One should therefore use a Wireless IPS that is pretty much efficient to differentiate between real danger and undisruptive neighbors.

Wireless Interlopers: Wireless IPS products as Motorola AirDefense or AirTight can easily detect malevolent Wi-Fi punters that are within the reach of any business periphery. But for definitive wireless data protection, accurately positioned WIPS sensors only meet the requirements. All the protocols like 802.11a/b/g should be updated in order to counter superior 802.11n attacks.

Spiteful Punters: clients that use unauthorized Wi-Fi connections of any sort are known as Spiteful Clients or Punters. They can cause a threat to the data. It always better to rely upon authorized APs to prevent this danger. You should restrict the end-user changes to avert this one and therefore you should be austere enough to unauthorized access to your Wi-Fi network.

Wireless Threats: hackers are on a go to bring out new ways of phishing and every second day newer hacking methods are invented. They can simply invade into any place of the Wi-Fi client web browser caches and cause harm. Once a hacker gets hold of your connection, it is pretty much possible that long after leaving the hotspot, your Wi-Fi connection may be redirected to a phishing site automatically. It may happen while the user is in a wired network. One method you can opt for in this case. Just extenuate the browser caches while leaving the network. The other option is to way out all traffic through a trusted VPN to ensure data protection of the Wi-Fi connection.

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