Advanced Wireless Security
This section deals with more advanced security topics relating to wireless networking.
This section deals with more advanced security topics relating to wireless networking. If you have any questions on these topics or would like us to look at your existing network, please feel free to give us a call.
Access Point Location
An access point for wireless network should be located in an area that give the best coverage to your building. Putting an access point on the side of a building will radiate to the outside world, thus allowing malicious users to be farther away while gathering data. Centering your access point in your building can greatly decrease the amount of wireless activity outside your building. On more advanced models, you can also turn down the gain or add a directional antenna to give only specific areas wireless access.
Internal Firewalls
Using a properly configured firewall between your wireless network and your wired network can also reduce the chances of any mishaps. If your wireless users only need access to web sites, a firewall with everything blocked but web traffic will only allow users access to the web. If your wireless network were to be compromised, only web traffic and the data on the wireless computers would be compromised, not the computers on the wired side.
Virtual Private Networks
A firewall that only allows VPN (virtual private networks) traffic and the correct hardware/authentication on the wired side is almost impossible to get in to. If your wireless network is compromised, all of the data passing back to the wired network in encrypted. As long as users don't keep data on their wireless computers your network is fairly safe from most attacks.
If your company is unsure about wireless security or its implementation, or you would like your security checked and updated by a professional, please feel free to give us a call. We can help make sure that both your data and reputation stay where they should, on the up and up.
Monday, January 31, 2011