Thursday, May 29, 2008

Pi Premiere League (PPL) is here!

22by7 is holding its Annual Sports Event - The PPL

Teams are working hard to come up with Media Campaign to grab mindshare. I belong to Team Omega and here is the Poster we came up with:



Best of luck to the other Teams!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Corporate Sniffing

Large companies snooping on employees' e-mails

Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008

New York: If you are an employee in a large company and are thinking of using your work e-mail for job hunting or online dating, watch out.

A new survey finds that 41 percent of large companies (those with 20,000 or more employees) are employing staffers to read or otherwise analyse the contents of employees' outbound e-mail, technology website cnet.com reports.

In the study, which was commissioned by e-mail security provider Proofpoint and conducted by Forrester Research, 44 percent of the US companies surveyed said they investigated an e-mail leak of confidential data in the past year and 26 percent said they fired an employee for violating e-mail policies.

The companies also said they are worried about employees leaking company information on their blogs, message boards, and media-sharing sites like YouTube.

Eleven percent of the companies surveyed took disciplinary action against employees for improper use of blogs or message boards in the past year, and slightly more than that disciplined workers for social-network violations and for improper use of media-sharing sites.

And 14 percent of publicly traded companies investigated the leakage of material financial information, such as unannounced financial results, on blogs and message boards.

Source: Silicon India

Friday, May 23, 2008

Red Curtain - Free Sec App - Article Pick

Most web workers are hip to security software applications. You probably run anti-virus software, and perhaps you use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) application when working from a public hotspot. (If you don’t run these applications, you should.) Recently, though, I’ve been using a more unusual, but definitely useful, security application from computer forensics company Mandiant, called Red Curtain.

Red Curtain is free to download and use, and it’s designed for the analysis of possible malware. It “examines executable files (e.g., .exe, .dll, and so on) to determine how suspicious they are based on a set of criteria” and then assigns each examined file a score.

Red Curtain examines a number of specific aspects of an executable, looking at things such as the entropy (or the randomness), indications of packing, compiler and packing signatures, the presence of digital signatures, and other characteristics to generate a threat “score.” According to Mandiant, “this score can be used to identify whether a set of files is worthy of further investigation.”

I’ve found Red Curtain useful in conjunction with anti-virus and anti-spyware software. After I finish my scans, when anti-virus and anti-spyware applications will occasionally flag files as possibly presenting problems, I quickly run a scan on the flagged files using Red Curtain. As one might expect for an application created by a computer forensics firm, it does a very dependable job of confirming whether suspicious files ought to be deleted right away.

You can download Red Curtain free, here. If you, as I do, constantly add to your arsenal of security applications, this one is worth a try.

Original Article : Web Worker Daily

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Online Security tips for your kids

7 tips for keeping kids safe online
Andy Greenberg


Any parent who has spent a few minutes trying to decipher the abbreviations in his or her teenager’s online chat conversations knows that the web hosts a youth culture all its own. And that world doesn’t just have its own language, it also fosters the sharing of personal information among friends—and sometimes strangers—that can set off alarm bells for parents. Here are a few tips for keeping up with your kid in this quickly evolving space—and helping to draw the line between harmless socializing and dangerous breaches of privacy

1. Talk to your kids about the web: More important than trying to limit or control your kids’ web access is to educate them about what information-sharing and behaviour is smart and responsible on the net. Make it clear to your kids that everything they post to a social networking site, or even send in an email, could easily end up being widely distributed to anyone in cyberspace—including people they’d never talk with in person. On the list of details they should never share online: home addresses, phone numbers, any financial information, sensitive personal details or compromising pictures.

2. Use kid-oriented social networks: One easy way to limit the dangers of social networking is to sign up your preteen kids for social networking sites designed for safety. The social network Imbee.com, for instance, is built to replicate real world friendships online, not to help kids meet strangers. Users can only access profiles within a limited network of friends. All new connections are approved by parents. The kids’ networking site Club Penguin is even safer, albeit targeted at a very young audience—with certain settings, users can only chat using a set of harmless phrases.

3. Use content-locking tools sparingly: Programs like Net Nanny or Cybersitter can block objectionable content on the web and make tracking your children’s online behaviour easy. But Larry Magid, founder of Safekids.com and Connectsafely.org, suggests parents think twice before locking down internet use with these kinds of programs. For teenagers, these sorts of software are likely to inspire rebellion and tempt them to find other, less censored paths to blocked material. For younger kids, Magid suggests the filters are often a poor substitute for more long-lasting education about online safety.

4. Agree on good terms for web use: The internet is more widely accessible every day, so a kid given strict rules about online behaviour without his or her input is likely to find a less restrictive entryway to the web. Instead, come to an agreement with your kids about what you both consider acceptable behaviour in terms of balancing their privacy and their safety. Larry Magid suggests parents and children write and sign pledges for proper online behaviour and post them by the family computer.

5. Monitor Your Kids’ Online Profile: One of the dangers of social networking and blogging is that so much of it occurs on the public web, where it’s broadcast to the world. But if strangers can access kids’ profiles and blogs, so can parents. Just as you stay involved in your child’s friendships in the offline world, you can also keep tabs on his or her online socializing, either actively participating for younger kids or watching from a less intrusive distance for teenagers.

6. Pick your location for computer carefully: Setting up a desktop computer that’s tied to a certain location in the house, rather than buying a laptop and using a wireless internet connection, is one way to make keeping an eye on your child’s web use easier. Even better: Put that computer in a high-traffic area of the house, like the living room or family room, to ensure that web surfing stays public. Keeping the internet out of your child’s bedroom also helps you balance his or her online activity with a healthy mix of offline activities like sports and reading.

7. Monitor cellphone use: As phones get smarter, the line between a cellphone and a net-connected computer is beginning to blur. If your child has a phone with internet capabilities, you should be sure to include cellphone use in your discussion about safe online communication. Monitoring your phone bill is one way to keep tabs on the amount of web browsing your child is doing over a cellular network. FORBES

Source: Times of India

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Top 10 free Network Tools

From sniffing to mapping to monitoring, these utilities perform surprisingly sophisticated tasks

Computerworld recently showcased 10 great free network management tools. Readers responded with some of their own favorites, so I'm going to take a look at those tools and report on their capabilities and usage from my perspective as an experienced network manager.

But first, let's address security. Readers mentioned the possible security implications of downloading free tools, which is a valid concern. What's to stop a coder from producing a neat network administration tool that secretly sends information about your network to a collection point for exploitation at a later date?

Read more here: ComputerWorld

Friday, May 9, 2008

Happy Secure Surfing - Article pick

Since you are reading this I’ll assume that you are aware that there are some fundamental precautions you need to take before you connect to the internet with your new machine. I’m hopeful that you are reading this on your old machine.

This is a good opportunity to review those precautions.

Patch your operating system. Download and install all available patches and service packs by connecting to Windows Update. According to Swedish security company Sophos, 50% of unpatched and unprotected systems will be infected with malicious code within 12 minutes of being connected to the Internet.

Install a firewall. Windows XP comes with a basic firewall, and if you are running Windows Vista, it does come with a more robust firewall (Windows Firewall) than XP, as well as anti-spyware utilities (Windows Defender). However, the consensus is; third party applications are usually more effective. Keep in mind that the XP firewall offers only minimal protection.

There are a number of free firewalls that are worth considering. The following are two that do the job particularly well.

Comodo Firewall


The definitive free firewall, Comodo Firewall protects your system by defeating hackers and restricting unauthorized programs from accessing the Internet. I have been using this application for 8 months and I continue to feel very secure. It resists being forcibly terminated and it works as well, or better, than any firewall I’ve paid for. This is one I highly recommend. Amazing that it’s free!

ZoneAlarm



The free version of ZoneAlarm lacks the features of ZoneAlarm Pro’s firewall. Its program control asks you regularly whether to allow programs; for some this can be intrusive and annoying. But it’s been around forever it seems, and it can’t be shut down, or out, by mal-ware.

Install anti-virus software. There is no doubt that an unprotected computer will become infected by viruses and malware within minutes of first being connected to the internet. There are many free versions of anti-virus software available and the programs that have a well justified reputation are listed below.

avast! 4 Home Edition


This anti virus app is a real fighter, scanning files on demand and on access, including email attachments. Let’s you know when it detects mal-ware through its shield function. An important feature is a boot-time scan option which removes mal-ware that can’t be remove any other way.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition


Similarly, this program scans files on access, on demand, and on schedule. Scans email; incoming and outgoing. For those on Vista, your in luck, it’s Vista-ready. I have been using this application since its release and it now forms part of my front line defenses. I recommend this one highly.

Install Spyware and Adware Software. It’s not only a virus that can put your computer down for the count, but a multitude of nasties freely floating on the Internet. Listed below are a number of free programs that offer very good protection against malware.

SpyCatcher Express


SpyCatcher does a good job of cleaning out spy-ware and at stopping further infestation.

Ad-Aware 2007



Many software reviewers consider Ad-Aware 2007 Free as the best free spyware and adware remover available. It does a relatively good job of protecting against known data-mining, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers and tracking components. The only downside with the free version is real-time protection is not included.

WinPatrol


Do you want to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer? Then WinPatrol is the program for you. With WinPatrol, in your system tray, you can monitor system areas that are often changed by malicious programs. You can monitor your startup programs and services, cookies and current tasks. Should you need to, WinPatrol allows you to terminate processes and enable, or disable, startup programs. There are additional features that make WinPatrol a very powerful addition to your security applications.

ThreatFire 3


ThreatFire 3 blocks mal-ware, including zero-day threats, by analyzing program behavior and it does a stellar job. Again, this is one of the security applications that forms part of my front line defenses. I have found it to have high success rate at blocking mal-ware based on analysis of behavior. I highly recommend this one!

If you are now on the Internet, and you have not yet taking the precautions as outlined above, you are extremely vulnerable and it is critical that you take the following precautions:

Stop surfing the Web and patch your operating system. Only then download the protective software as noted above, or software that you are familiar with that will do an appropriate job of protecting your computer.

Do not visit any other websites until you have done this!

Additional security precautions:

Establish a password for the administrator account. Only you should have access to the administrator settings on your PC. Unfortunately, XP installs with open access to the administrator’s account. Be sure to change this.

Create a new password protected user account. Using this account for your general day-to-day activities adds another layer of protection to your computer. A user account does not have the same all-access permissions as your administrator account, and in many cases this extra layer of protection will restrict malware from gaining a foothold on your PC.

Good luck and safe surfing.

Source

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Spammers & Scammers


How spammers manage to make money

Kavita Kukday | TNN 
Spam is undoubtedly one of internet miscreants’ oldest tricks. With the internet security community stopping just short of putting up hoardings screaming not to touch those “Make money for nothing” emails, one can safely assume that anyone with even half a clue won’t touch them with a bargepole. So how does the spamming community survive and thrive when no one who is even tad bit tech savvy admits to doing business with them? Would there be hoards of poverty-stricken spammers out there that are slowly, but surely, starving to death?

    The answer is unfortunately a big No.

    Studies have found that the business of spam is spinning more money by the day. So how do these spammers make money?

    Well, contrary to popular belief, a significant number of spammers apparently aren’t at all interested in whether anyone buys their wares. They will, in fact, keep minting money even if you never click on any of the spam emails. How? They simply feed off other spammers in a bizarre cannibalistic pyramid scheme of spinning money.

    The math is simple: most spammers make money selling email addresses to other spammers, who then sell those same addresses to others and so on, say security experts.

The numbers game: According to a study by IronPort Systems, Cisco’s security division, the spam volume currently stands at a whopping 98 billion per day worldwide. And it’s growing at 12% month over month since June 2007.

    “And why ever not? It makes you a lot of easy money. Spam masters make $10,000+ a week,” said Ambarish Deshpande, regional director, IronPort Systems, adding, “and they don’t do anything except mine for more and more legitimate addresses and sell them for money.”

    Obviously then, the profession is gaining popularity with young hackers, especially those in third world countries. The study found that the internet had an entire sub-industry supported by spammers alone. For instance, a test conducted on pharmaceutical spammers showed that four days of access to a spam server network, which simply gives you an infrastructure to dish out spam, gives these professionals $6,800.

    The study also found that replying to spam will always result in more spam. In fact, you would find that maximum percent of the spammers never even reply to your requests for more information on their product or service. That’s because they make money on customers’ email address, which is sold to other spammers who in turn again simply pass along the address to still other spammers.

    Funnily, some of these addresses finally also land them into actual legitimate business—people with a real product to sell who were actually interested in selling them. Since there are several layers to this spam scam, most of these legitimate business people don’t even know that the recipient hadn’t requested their sales pitch, because whoever sold them the email addresses in the first place had assured them the recipients wanted the information.

Hidden risks: The biggest number, of course, was found to be that of spam mails with offers for pornography, which consistently delivered exactly the sort of materials they promised. But even these came with nasty pop-up adproducing spyware, and the inbox was crammed with Xrated spam that would singe the retinas of all but the most jaded viewer. Worse, they opened up a backdoor to the computers with various codes that did everything from copying important data from your PC to turning your PC into a zombie that delivered more spam to random addresses all over the world.

    However, if this has led you to think you are safe because you never fell into the trap of clicking on those emails with pornographic content, think again. According to a Google study conducted in May 2007, “One in 10 web pages are infected with malicious code. 70% of web-based infections were found on ‘legitimate’ websites. An estimated 5% of heavily trafficked websites have some sort of threat associated with them—ranging from adware to malicious spyware.”

    For instance on Indian websites, malicious content was found embedded in sites like Delhi Tourism (www.delhi-tourism-india.com/culture), www.zeeinternational.co.in, Business Management Association (www.bmaindia.com) and also some well known banks who have since taken down the culprit script, said a security professional from one of the top security companies.

Scam spam: Finally, there is a good percent of spam messages that obviously still turn out to be brilliant scams. One such example Iron-Port Systems came across was where the ads spoke about a Canadian pharmacy. This sold $129.95 bottle of the ‘Erection pack’, which consisted of two packs of sexual stimulants, ‘viagra’ and ‘cialis’. The best part was a slick legitimate-looking pharmacy site called ‘My-CanadianPharmacy’. This came with a legitimate address and ‘contacts us’ sections.

    The spammers had not only gone to the trouble of making a legitimate looking website, but had also actually set up a delivery system which was traced back to a garage in India. A smalltime company in India was hired to package some tablets that were crammed with enough herbal stimulants to keep a person generally charged up for days. The package even included the return address of this place in Goregaon, Mumbai.

    “It was a brilliant business strategy because this way the spammers actually made the customers believe that they were on to something legitimate and got repeated business from them,” said Deshpande.
 
 
 

Monday, May 5, 2008

22by7 shares its expertise in Benefit IT magazine

Sr. Architect Mr. Bharath shares his expertise in Benefit IT Mabazine article


You’ve Got Mail
So Archive It!

Managing e-mails is every organisation’s nightmare.
However, there’s no way around it given the need for
seamless communication, regulatory compliance and
legal purposes. With archiving solutions in place, you
can rest in peace regarding the efficiency of your server
and flow of e-mails. Go ahead and get one for that
smooth, hassle-free flow of communication.

Key BenefITs
No e-mail overload clogging server
No duplication of e-mails in archive
Ensures compliance with laws
Easy and quick retrieval of e-mails

You’ve got mail!

And a flood of it. Imagine your
inbox inundated with hundreds of messages
that you need to spend hours clearing each
morning? Or, what if a critical mail is lost
perhaps in the maze of your global network
or swallowed by your server? Unthinkable,
because the loss of a single e-mail may spell
the loss of a precious business contact,
contract, appointment, or may be a monetary
setback to your company.E-mail, an otherwise
efficient communication tool for companies or
college students, can be a nuisance, if not taken
care of expertly. In today’s global village, e-mail is
the most critical business communication tool in
over 93 per cent of the organisations in the world
today. Business firms receive a few hundred critical mails
everyday. Each mail is precious, for the communication it brings in
and the part it plays in the global business network.
A company’s progress is linked to it, and hence it needs to be preserved.
In the current business environment, organisations are under constant
pressure from the government, legal and regulatory bodies to store more
data and for longer periods ranging from five to
seven years. A lost mail may open the Pandora’s box of troubles from
loosing credibility in the eyes of potential customers to legal hassles
from suing clients. Enterprises, no doubt,understood this long back and to
maintain e-mail servers’ efficiency,the following steps were taken by
most systems managers:
• Adding more primary storage
capacity.
• Limiting the end user
mailbox size.
• Deleting messages from
message servers at regular
intervals, and
• Relying on back-up tapes for
long-term retention.

But these methods bypass the necessity to store e-mails for
regulatory compliance and legal requirements.
The client suing you for unfinished work as per the
contractual agreement, may very well get away with it and
many of your hard earned crores while making a huge dent in your
credibility unless, of course, you fish out the two-year old mail
regarding the transaction which was completed two years ago.
Herein e-mail archiving plays a crucial role allowing you to search
and reuse an old mail at your convenience.
Searching and retrieving the data when needed is the tricky bit.
Storing, archiving, and searching an old mail are the few challenges
we must tackle to safeguard against any potential business losses.
Where’s the space?

Today, most of the company information and record systems
are digital on at least one computer system (and probably multiple
systems, including online and offline storage). E-mails with all
kind of attachments (ppt, doc, jpeg, mpeg, mp3, etc) are taking up
almost 40 per cent of the storage capacity in organisations today.
What's more, even the e-mail attachments end up getting
stored in multiple places such as the inbox, sent folder and different
folders in a single computer, thus occupying more precious space.

A PR firm sends a 2 MB presentation to 100 companies. This
right away creates a 200 MB storage requirement for 200 recipients of
the press release. Many of those receiving the mail may open and
save the attachment or just let it lie in their inbox The organisations
whose employees do not open the mail add to the ‘unread’ bulk;
while those who ‘read’ but do not bother to delete the mail add to the
‘read’ bulk. Research has shown that after 30 days, 80 per cent of the
people do not access their e-mails but they do not delete it either. It is
just being kept for future reference while eating into a lot of expensive
storage space.

This makes e-mail storage a challenging job that is expensive to
manage and difficult to back-up, additionally with personal archives,
risk exposure, and inconsistent retention, message retrieval is like
searching for a needle in a haystack.

The key challenges according to Atul Gupta, product manager,
Select Technologies are:
• Reducing the primary storage
requirement for the messaging
storage environment by 60 to
80 per cent
• Improving performance of the
message servers
• Automating retention and
disposition policies
• Searching and retrieving
messages in seconds instead of
days, weeks or months
• Confidently producing all emails
for legal discovery.
There’s a solution though!

The most popular solutions in India are EMC’s E-mail Xtender
and Symantec’s Enterprise Vault,informs Atul.
EMC EmailXtender is a centralised data storage and
retrieval system. It automatically moves data off the e-mail
message server into the storage system, capturing and indexing all
incoming and outgoing e-mails. EMC EmailXtender
archive edition helps to reduce storage costs and increase
message server performance in Microsoft Exchange and Lotus
Notes/Domino environments by automatically migrating e-mail
messages and attachments into a centralised message archive. It
also removes duplicate messages while compressing them for a
compact message archive. “Good e-mail archiving solutions do
something called de-duplication of messages, so any message archived
will not be archived again,” adds
Bharath Kumar, senior architect,
22by7 Solutions Pvt Ltd.
This can also be combined with networked storage and help
organisations achieve increased operational efficiencies for dayto-
day e-mail management. For fixed content archiving, corporate
governance and regulated storage environments, EMC Centera,
a content addressed storage (CAS) system, provides unique
self-healing and authentication features.
Storing, archiving, and searching an old mail are the few challenges we
must tackle to safeguard against any
potential business losses.

ManageIT
productivity.

Since this is a a one time cost on software products and
disk storage solutions where the mails will be archived,
taking the compliance and SLAs (service level agreements) into
consideration, the ROI (Return on Investment) can be achieved
in a year, adds Kumar. However, Atul adds that the cost depends
on the archival policy and compliance and there are two
major components—archival software and hardware. Software
has unique features that lower the TCO (total cost of ownership)
and gives quick ROI. E-mails need to be archived as
a record of business transactions.At the same time there must be
ease of use for people to work with efficiency.

The art of archiving

An e-mail server’s performance can deteriorate
exponentially when storing vast amounts of old e-mail and as a
result, users have to suffer e-mail quotas. Archiving helps to keep
the messaging server sizes small, while improving performance
and reducing back-up time. With archiving, an organisation can
establish a pro-active e-mail management system. Moreover, a
single, centrally managed e-mail archive would help
improve operational efficiency and storage management in
your company as also reduce time, cost, and the risk of legal
hassles. It will also provide a seamless end-user experience
while enabling compliance with regulatory and corporate
governance requirements.

Digging deep

When we archive so many mails every day, we end up
storing millions of mails. So how do you hunt for one specific mail
in this mass? According to Kumar there are two ways to search for
mail from archives: Web search (By using a URL to connect to
the e-mail archival server) and second by using client software
which will get integrated with a mail client like Outlook, Notes,
etc. Thus, it can be retrieved through a simple search.
“Since every archived mail has an icon and this reflects as any
other mail in the mailbox minus the size of the mail. Once the
user clicks on the icon, the e-mail gets retrieved with a minimal lag
time,” says PK Gupta, director— APJ (Back-up, Recovery and
Archive solutions), EMC Global Services.

The legal angle

The compliance regulation ideally ranges between five
to seven years. So for legal purposes a company needs to
preserve its mails. Again, each company has its own policies
and systems of meeting its regulatory obligations. “The
time span for which we need to store an e-mail varies to a huge
extent from one organisation to the other. Different companies
have different strategies and policies. For example, one of the
customers keeps all the e-mails for 30 days on primary storage
after that it moves it to ATAbased cheaper disks for one year
but leaves shortcuts so that users can retrieve their e-mails quickly,
and at the same time save a lot of space by de-duplication.
After a year, it moves to content addressed storage (CAS) for five
years to meet the compliance requirements and then gets
deleted after five years,” adds Gupta.

Cost is a constraint

Companies need to invest on storage products so that the
servers’ efficiency is maintained, which indirectly impacts the
efficiency of employees. This improves user satisfaction and
Archiving for accessibility
• Increases the processing power of
the mail server
• Gives control on mails within the
organisation.
• Enhances e-mail retention efficiency
• Assists compliance with e-mail
retention requirements and
regulations to preserve corporate
records
• Deploys complete e-mail
management with assured
authenticity and easy accessibility to
the archived messages
• Increases end-user productivity by
reducing time spent managing e-mail
folders
• Accelerates Microsoft Exchange
and Lotus Notes software upgrades
and migrations by archiving e-mail in
advance
• Reduces storage costs and improves
message server performance
• Lowers the costs and risks of legal
hassles

-by Jesus Milton Rousseau S.
BenefIT Bureau

“Good e-mail archiving solutions do
something called de-duplication of
messages, so any message archived
will not be archived again.”
Bharath Kumar, senior architect, 22by7 Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Wireless Threats

Wireless Vulnerabilities Present Enterprise-Wide Threats, Expert Says

Wireless is the greatest threat to corporate networks since the emergence of the Internet, AirPatrol CEO says

APRIL 28, 2008 | 5:40 PM

By Tim Wilson
Site Editor, Dark Reading

LAS VEGAS -- Interop/CSI SX Conference -- Wireless vulnerabilities in corporate environments are creating as great a threat now as the Internet did in its early days, a security expert said here today.

In a session at the Computer Security Institute's CSI CX conference, which is being held concurrently with Interop here, AirPatrol CEO Nicholas Miller said the rapid growth of wireless networking has increased the threat of wireless vulnerabilities to an unprecedented level.

"The problem is that wireless vulnerabilities don't just expose the user who's unaware of them, but the whole corporate network the user is attached to."

"I can go out in a car and sit in a parking lot with a wireless router and gain access to an amazing variety of systems," Miller said. "It's really a little bit scary."

In an effort to save money and reduce infrastructure, many companies are moving toward a wireless infrastructure, which puts their networks at a greater risk than ever, Miller says. Yet many of the old vulnerabilities that existed in the wireless environment still have not been resolved, he observed.

"We think the best approach is to attack the problem in the reverse way that they're currently doing, which is to put in a wireless network and then add a security solution," Miller said. "What we think they should do is deploy a wireless security system first, and then you could literally go out and buy the access points at Best Buy."

"What we're really saying is that the emperor's got no clothes. You don't need all of that complex wireless technology if you have a wireless threat management system in place with encryption and security."

Wireless infrastructure vendors offer some security capabilities, "but they are really looking for rogue access points, which is a tiny issue compared to the total problem associated with laptop security," he said. "You really need to look at the entire network -- you need to secure the endpoints."

The problem with most wireless technologies is that they don't account for the end user's location, Miller said. "All of a sudden people can have access to the network as if they were in the building, which is why we need location-based access in wireless. Any wireless product you're looking for should have that capability. If a hacker wants to break into the network, they should have to break into the building."

AirPatrol is working with CheckPoint to block wireless access from unauthorized access points via the firewall, Miller said. "We're blocking traffic at the edge of the network using CheckPoint firewalls, which is a new way to use the firewall. We're also working with a very large switch vendor to see this sort of access control at the switch level."

To be effective, a location-based wireless security system should be able to deliver accuracy within 10 feet of the user's location, Miller said. "Ten feet tells you it's Frank in accounting. Thirty feet tells you it's in the building."

Source