Get expert insights into the latest developments in cybersecurity to stay ahead of emerging threats and evolving technologies. Our in-depth analysis covers everything from new attack vectors and vulnerabilities to cutting-edge security solutions and trends.
Wireless security concerns don’t seem to be slowing hotspot growth. In 3Q09, AT&T hotspots serviced over 25 million Wi-Fi sessions – 66 percent more than in 2Q09. Aircell now offers in-flight Wi-Fi service on over 4,000 flights per day. In my hometown (Philadelphia), Comcast just launched over 2000 new Xfinity hotspots. Yet, few public hotspots…
The Enterprise mode of Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA or WPA2) encryption uses 802.1X authentication to provide better security for wireless networks. This mode should be used by all businesses and organizations (no matter how small) rather than the Personal or Pre-Shared Key (PSK) mode. There are myriad reasons why your business’s Wi-Fi network should be…
If your employees carry sensitive company data on unencrypted laptops, portable hard drives or USB flash drives, your job and theirs may be in jeopardy. We report cases almost weekly in these pages of lost or stolen computers and drives with unencrypted data, and the havoc that ensues. Sometimes you shake your head in wonder…
In this tutorial, we’ll see exactly how to configure and connect to WPA/WPA2-Enterprise networks in 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. A quick note about the screen shots: they are taken from 10.5; some windows differ in 10.6. Quickly connecting to an 802.1X network First, let’s see how easy it is to connect to an…
Introduction Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) entered the IT security scene about 10 years ago with offerings from start-up companies Perfecto (renamed Sanctum before being acquired by WatchFire in 2004), KaVaDo (acquired by Protegrity in 2005), and NetContinuum (acquired by Barracuda in 2007). The premise was fairly simple: as attacks moved up the IP stack to…
One of the best ways to defend yourself against a Wi-Fi hacker is to learn to think like one. As a hacker, you could simply be on a quest to find something as innocent as free Internet access, or you could be a serious criminal, hired by a cybercrime syndicate to get inside a corporate…
Even in this day and age, after decades of having the Internet, we are still surprisingly sending and receiving most of our e-mails and information insecurely through the World Wide Web. We’re still using most of the founding protocols and technologies that transfer data in what we call clear-text. When in clear-text, your passwords and…
Protocol analyzers are often used to capture, decode, and evaluate traffic flows and packets for network debugging, troubleshooting, and optimization. But did you know that a protocol analyzer can also be indispensable for security incident investigation? Perhaps the best-known open source protocol analyzer is Wireshark (nee Ethereal), capable of decoding scads of protocols, captured from…
All new Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products support WPA2 (AES-CCMP) security, but that’s not enough to harden a WLAN against attack. Breaches can still be caused by policy, configuration, and coding mistakes, overly-friendly clients, or unauthorized APs. Continuous surveillance and periodic assessments are important to spot (and then patch!) these and other WLAN vulnerabilities. You can’t conduct…