WLAN Risks

If you have a wireless network that isn't fully protected, you may as well offer your company's computing resources to anyone with access to your parking lot or the business across the street. In other words, you are offering all of your confidential information to someone who DOESN'T EVEN NEED TO BE IN YOUR BUILDING. From your wireless access point, the insides of your network are completely vulnerable. At this point, your firewall and intrusion detection system are completely useless unless you've properly integrated your wireless architecture into your network defense architecture. Your risks?

• Loss of company data to competitors or criminals. This could entail private customer data you are required to protect by law. Or your company's trade secrets...
  
• Violation of privacy laws. This is of specific concerns to the healthcare and financial industry with very specific laws and large penalties for failing to secure their data.
  
• Drive-by spammers commonly use poorly secured wireless networks to send thousands of non-solicited e-mail. Best case, you are losing bandwidth you've paid for. Worst case, you may be accused of sending spam e-mail.
  (http://list-news.com/articles/02september/20020909.html)
  
• An open wireless access point is one of the most common backdoors into your normally secure hard-wired network. In addition to stealing your data, a hacker can quickly upload a Trojan horse or backdoor that can be accessed at a later date, from another location.

The possibilities are endless. One thing is sure -- you can't afford not to secure your wireless access! If you have a wireless network, you need to ask yourself, "Who really owns my network?"

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