When designing wireless networks you need to build your security measures in overlapping rings, like the concentric defence of a medieval castle. Should one security measure be proven weak or flawed, several other layers of your defensive strategy should still offer protection to your network. The overall goal is to ensure that no single failure can cause a collapse of all your defences.

Business level wireless networks require complex and painstaking research and evaluation. Due to the number of points of difference between any two business networks, few ready made “one size fits all” solutions exist today. However many wireless vendors tend to market their solutions in this manner.

If you are familiar with securing your home wireless installation you will discover some of the security mechanisms you are accustomed to in small scale wireless networks do not scale effectively to a business.

A Wireless Site Survey is suggested in order to:

  • Protect the business from inadvertently sharing information.

  • Determine proper placement of Access Points to give the required connectivity and throughput.

  • This is an ideal time to take plan for some security concerns.

  • Placement of Access Points to provide adequate speed to the users, this may also cause a lot of signal to spread beyond the boundary of the building itself.   We look for opportunities to shape the RF footprint of the network by careful use of power levels and directional antennas to minimise the RF in areas outside of your physical control. Many companies plug in and forget un aware their data is potentially accessible externally to their physical location.

  • Train the users about the proper and improper uses of the wireless access they are being provided. Educate on false hotspots that are created to simulate your own to harvest credentials.

THE SINGLE GREATEST ASSET HELD BY MOST COMPANIES IS THEIR INFORMATION.

Much like the ever changing landscape of cyber security, the team at Cognition Intelligence are always looking for ways to improve what we do and how we do it. One of the staples of our Cyber diet is our work on maintaining best practice through industry partner organisations such as the UK National Cyber Security Centre, the SANS Institute and of course NIST. There are many other bodies we monitor and gain intelligence from and these evolve like we do to mitigate threat for our clients.

As a standard measure, We would typically implement a raft of security measures and configuration changes that are often left open by installers. The implementation of our Wireless IDS and IPS systems are also a growing asset and constant requirement to any business that works with sensitive data.