A study has discovered that while retailers are physically securing their businesses to prevent theft, they are not taking the same precautions with their wireless security.
The "2007 Retail Shopping Wireless Security Survey" conducted by AirDefense, tested the wireless "perimeters" of 3,000 shops across the United States and parts of Europe. It discovered that of 2,500 wireless devices such as laptops, hand-helds, and barcode scanners detected, 85 percent of these were wide open to hacking.
This is mostly down to data leakage, misconfigured access points, outdated access point firmware, poor naming choices for access points, and a "cookie-cutter" technology approach by large retailers.
The survey also monitored nearly 5,000 access points, and AirDefense discovered that 25 percent were unencrypted. The good news was that 74 percent were encrypted, but 25 percent used Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), one of the weakest protocols for wireless data encryption. Forty-nine percent used Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) or WPA 2, the two strongest encryption protocols.
As would be expected, the study found that retailers maintained much stronger physical security measures than wireless security.
"Retailers today are much more adept at preventing or minimizing shoplifting by using a layered security approach, but the same can't be said for wireless security, where misconfigured or unencrypted access points were evident in every city," said Mike Potts, president and CEO of AirDefense.
Indeed, it seems that the most common data security lapses involved misconfigured access points that open backdoors to data. Some of the networks were discovered to be fresh out of the box, using default configurations and SSID (Service Set Identification), such as retail wireless, POS Wi-Fi, or store#1234. This is especially dangerous, as it shows hackers that nothing has been changed on these wireless networks.
The importance of securing networks was highlighted last week when a study by security vendor Sophos found that 54 percent of computer users had "piggybacked" on other people's Wi-Fi connections.
Retailer TJX was hit earlier this year by a highly damaging data breach when at least 94 million credit and debit card accounts were stolen from its computers by hackers.
In an effort to help, AirDefense has unveiled a list of 'best practices' that consumers and retailers can use to protect themselves while using their wireless devices at locations offering Wi-Fi networks.
Techworld.com is an InfoWorld affiliate.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive Security Resource Alerts
This white paper provides guidance on how to develop a strategic approach to managing and monitoring logs, a key function required for compliance with many regulatory mandates and a critical defense against security threats.
Download now! »
Learn about the processes and technologies that support security information management (SIM) operations, as well as the business case for SIM. The series examines different options for implementing SIM and gives you evaluation criteria for selecting the best option for your organization.
Download now! »
Learn the strategies, actions, and capabilities that Best-in-Class organizations employ and technologies they choose to obtain superior performance against various security performance metrics. This report provides guidelines for identifying which security solutions to consume as a MSS and defines best practices for choosing and managing MSSPs.
Download now! »
2 Recommendations
