AirTight is presenting a weekly series of Webinars, entitled, “How the PCI Wireless Guidelines Apply to You,” which are aimed at helping organizations understand the wireless scanning requirements of the PCI DSS release this month by the PCI SSC and provide practical information on how to address those requirements to prove compliance. The Webinars will be held each Thursday at 11 A.M. U.S. California time beginiing on July 23, 2009. Those wishing to register for the first of the series may do so by following the link above. After that there will be a document on AirTight’s website which will allow you to choose a convenient date for yourself.

Della Lowe Compliance, PCI, Wireless scanning, Wireless security PCI DSS, PCI SSC, wireless guideline

This story seems to come from the files of “I am ten feet tall and bulletproof.” Many of us have a mixed reaction to those who are able to manipulate computers and code to their advantage for criminal acts. We wonder why they do not use their talents to simply make money the old fashioned way but also are outraged at their actions which disrupt our lives, compromise our security and cost us money. But then you read a story such as the one Robert McMillen of IDG posted over the weekend about the security guard and ersatz hacker who allegedly videotaped his cyber exploits at the clinic he was supposed to be protecting and then posted them to YouTube. He claimed to be adding botnets which would allow him to do a denial of service attack on July 4 just for the fun of it. He did get caught. You really have to read this story which is both funny and sad at the same time.

Della Lowe Wireless security cyber crime, cyber security, hacking

Attendees will learn:

• The difference between active and passive approaches to wireless intrusion prevention
• The core capabilities of different approaches to wireless intrusion prevention
• What to look for when testing systems to assure that there are no gaps in WLAN security
• How to judge when you need more capabilities than you currently have

Della Lowe Wireless security, WLAN planning active AP detection, Cam Table, passive AP detection, WLAN security

Michael is the Message Integrity Code adapter by the TKIP standard. Michael is actually a weak code which uses simple additions and shift operation which are computationally less expensive, but strong enough as a intermediate solution from WEP. Michael was chosen as MIC in TKIP, so that the already deployed low end Access Points can also be software upgraded to TKIP without any hardware change. This video explains the working of MIC in TKIP.

Della Lowe Wireless security cyber security, encryption, Rogue AP, TKIP, WiFi access point, Wireless security

AirTight’s director of technology joins HP ProCurve executives for two informative sessions at the HP Technology Forum in Las Vegas
June 15-18, 2009, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Session: Wired/Wireless Management
Speakers: Dr. Hemant Chaskar, Director of Technology, AirTight Networks, Carl Blume, HP
This session offers timely advice for managing wireless and integrated wired/wireless networks from the perspectives of security, policy enforcement, performance optimization, and scalability.

Session: Wired and wireless Security
Speakers: Dr. Hemant Chaskar, Director of Technology, AirTight Networks, Mauricio Sanchez, HP
This session will present some differences and commonalities between protecting your network in a wireless versus a wired environment. It will outline the fundamentals of a comprehensive, multi-layered network security strategy and will drill down into some specific IDS/IPS (intruder detection system/intruder protection system) solutions that are particularly useful for combating wireless threats.

Della Lowe Wireless security, WLAN planning Overlay WIPS, security policy, WIDS, WiFi

Do you believe that IT security in private enterprise is a national security issue? I do and would love to hear your thoughts. You might want to take a look at the Airport WiFi and Financial District wireless vulnerability studies that AirTight performed recently to see just how badly some organizations are following b est practices when it comes to wireless security.
It appears that in some quarters folks felt that the President did not tell us anything we did not know in his speech on Friday about cyber security.  I think we need to understand, however, that the key phrase there is “anything WE did not know.”  At times we who work in technology live in a bubble and assume that everyone understands what we understand.  But technology or cyber security is our business – it is not the core business of the financial institution, the hospital, the school, the utility etc. Read more…

Della Lowe Best practices, Wireless security cyber security, President Obama, security policy, wireless

If you did not know about this or if you did not get the latest, you really ought to read Bob McMillan’s article in Network World. This is a very sneaky and vicious attack and apparently growing like wildfire. They almost got me but being fleet of foot, I got away.

Della Lowe Wireless security

You may want to take a look at AirTight’s scans of financial districts in 7 U.S. cities and London. Not a lot of  wireless security best practices being used in them. Find the landing page here: Financial Districts Scanning Report

Della Lowe Best practices, Compliance, Wireless security

Introduction

Wireless security audits play a crucial role in the wireless vulnerability assessment of IT infrastructure and provide guidance on how organizations can meet regulatory wireless compliance requirements. Assessment of wireless vulnerabilities is challenging because of the dynamic nature of wireless environments. Auditors have to worry about not only the wireless devices in a network environment that is being audited, but also external wireless devices in the vicinity that can impact the susceptibility of the network in question to vulnerabilities and attacks. Wireless laptops, handhelds, and smartphones carried by business travelers can also get infected with vulnerabilities on the road; even organizations that may not have officially deployed a wireless LAN need to be aware of these threats. Read more…

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