- How to make your wireless network virtually impenetrable.
Wireless networking or WiFi enables the convenience of high-speed networking without the cost or challenges of cabling all office locations. Wireless connectivity can be added to back office devices such as scanners and printers as well as laptops. In addition, and an oft overlooked benefit is from savings on wireless PDA Data Plans as smart phones route traffic through WiFi when available. Separate secure wireless channels can be added to give customers and visitors of your Fairfield County, Connecticut business the benefit of wireless access, without affecting the performance of the offices network and increasing customer satisfaction.
However, with the convenience of wireless access comes additional risk. One of the greatest risks is caused by the elimination of the need for physical connectivity. In a traditional wired environment, someone attempting to hack into your network had to be in the location physically to plug into a data report. In a wireless environment, the hacker simply has to be near the facility to gain access to the network.
Steps to Secure your Wireless Network
What is surprising is that the same office that has poor practices around its Wireless Network will often have substantially better security practices for its wired network. Wireless Networks must be as secure as wired networks and must also have the ability to detect rogue access points and prevent intrusions.
In our work we’ve come across a number of poor practices including deployment of access points with default passwords and configurations, lack of security tools to detect and block malicious behavior or unauthorized devices, use of vulnerable and out of date applications and protocols such as WAP, and lack of authentication or data encryption.
In spite of these risks and challenges, deployment of Wireless Networks continues to grow every year. A way to reduce the risk of unauthorized access and data loss is to select a wireless security appliance which offers overlapping and complementary layers of security to protect the network such as:
- Secure wireless guest and employee access to data and voice connectivity
- Latest security protocols, QoS, Rogue AP detection
- Access Control Lists (ACL)
- Captive Portal Guest Access
- Seamless Roaming between all access points (clustering)
- Optimized for VoIP
The Payoff
With network security in place, your company will experience many business benefits. Your company is protected against business disruption, which helps keep employees productive. Because network security helps protect your customers' data, it reduces the risk of legal action from data theft.
Security also reduces, or eliminates, IT support time for network and workstation cleanup after virus or mal-ware infections. A cleanup of a bad infection in a small network can take up to 8 hours of a technician’s time.
Ultimately, network security helps protect a business's reputation, which is one of its most important assets.
Don’t delay, call us now. We are excited to respond to your RFP.
Good Networking,
Johannes Banck, SBSC, CIO & Owner
Computer Systems Support & Design, LLC
203.349.8047 Ext 211
