Motorola Boosts WLAN Security

Motorola is trying to help enterprises secure their Wi-Fi networks by letting the companies "hack" their own wireless LANs.

The company's AirDefense Wireless Vulnerability Assessment product enables an IT department to secure wireless LANs by simulating attacks from the hacker's point of view. This is done by utilizing the radio of the wireless sensors to create these attacks, and it can also simulate how far a hacker would be able to get in the enterprise network.

Motorola said this could lead to some cost savings, as it mitigates the need to send personnel or a third party to manually conduct a vulnerability assessment of an enterprise WLAN. Companies can also schedule these simulated attacks in order to determine when their system is most vulnerable. Additionally, a strong, secure WLAN is required for compliance in many industries like retail, government, and healthcare.

"It's sad but true that the threats against wireless LAN systems are evolving just as rapidly as the underlying wireless and system technologies," said Craig Mathias, principal at the mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group, in a statement. "It's clear that as wireless LANs take on an ever-greater role in mission-critical enterprise, government, and commercial applications, innovative, cost-effective techniques for the proactive and efficient detection, analysis, and remediation of a broad range of threats are essential to long-term success."

The Vulnerability Assessment is a software solution that can be deployed quickly for customers with existing Motorola AirDefense hardware. The assessment modules cost about $295, the sensors are about $500, and the management console appliance costs about $6,000.

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