However then once more take a look at
the bright side at least you don't have the false sense of
security that your network is secure. Perhaps you're the
sensible guy who knows how insecure wireless networks are. You
too are at just an equal risk!
Your laptop consultant may be partially right when they
say WEP can defend your network. It will protect your
network from casual snooping but that's regarding it. Last
year the FBI was able to crack a WEP protected network in
but three minutes with tools widely offered on the
internet. Since then it has been downhill for WEP.
At this time you might be thinking, "Oh well, someone gets
on my network and uses the net". This can be completely
false. If somebody has gone through the method of getting
on your network chances are the only thing they wish is not
internet access. Any pc security professional will
tell you that physical access to the network is 95% of the
security battle. Once this has been accomplished you can
consider all your knowledge compromised. Customer invoices,
customer data, mastercard numbers and passwords to
money establishments can all be in the hands of a hacker.
One in many methods can be used to gain access to your
personal information, whether or not it's through Key loggers, Trojans, or
simply by sniffing your plaintext network traffic.
Maybe, just maybe, I have not convinced you of the
insecurities of wireless networks. Let me tell you regarding
another attack that hackers will use to gain access to your
network. Maybe your access points are completely locked
down, to your knowledge. A user from your network goes and
flips on their laptop while sitting in an airport terminal
looking forward to a plane. They see an obtainable insecure
wireless network thus they click on it and connect. None folks
have ever done this before right, itching to test their
email one last time before heading out of city? Unbeknownst
to them they need just clicked on a pretend honeypot wireless
network, founded by a rogue hacker that before they will even
notice their machine is already being scanned. Picture for
a moment that user could be anywhere, even sitting at a desk
in your network. Just as long as the rogue access purpose is
stronger than your AP's radio signal you're security is
done.
Might be you fall into the category of never fixing
wireless networks as a result of you scan about their insecurities.
How then can you be in danger? Simply take into account for an instant
that a user in your organization fires up his wireless card.
See's a wireless network that is named XYZCorp after your
company. So they connect to it and immediately a script is
hammering their machine for security vulnerabilities. Once
once more they connected to a rogue access point setup by a
hacker. Currently you would possibly be thinking. "C'mon you want to need to
be a laptop genius to find and run these tools." Assume
again, thanks to the type people over at remote-exploit.org
all these tools can be downloaded in one massive happy ISO file.
Burned to a CD as an image and bang you are done, prepared to
take a drive to the nearest business and start sniffing
credit card numbers. Everything wrapped into a pleasant package
just watching for the following script kiddy to start running the
programs. You may be thinking ok this is often a significant problem therefore
what should I do? Provide up my organizations ability to use
wireless networks? This isn't specifically what we have a tendency to are saying.
A more moderen wireless security technology has taken over in 2004
referred to as WPA. It is more secure than WEP. And so far tools
are not as readily available to hack your network. But
contemplate the following. WEP was ratified in the late 1990's
but six years later it had been exploited. This is often typical
of just about each laptop technology. It's solely a matter of
time before technologies are exploited. Simply invariably
bear in mind Security could be a multi-tiered companywide
responsibility. From providing physical security to web
website security all matters ought to be thought of serious and
not taken lightly. So before you grab a wireless access
point and slap it in your network, I urge you to assume
twice.
You'll think you're in a sinking boat because you are a
small organization not ready to implement the newest
technologies and afford the latest access points. Or even
you cannot afford to pay an IT staff over 100k-200k a year
to maintain your medium size network. Executives at
N2
Network Solutions say you ought to take into account IT outsourcing or
IT consulting. You can get Industry certified engineers on
a project by project basis. Contractual relationships are
conjointly on the market to dump the responsibility of your network
into their hands for a fraction of the price. To keep your
small to medium size network performing like a Fortune 500
machine invest the capital and secure your assets.
Author Resource:-
Link :
Aaron R Daniel has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Networking, you can also check out his latest website about:
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