Newbury Scales Security Software For Small WLANs

Newbury Networks on Monday released a scaled-down version of its Wi-Fi Watchdog WLAN security software for small-scale WLAN deployments.

Wi-Fi Watchdog Early Warning System (EWS) tracks all traffic on the wireless network and can identify and isolate threats such as rogue access points, said Chuck Conley, vice president of marketing at Newbury Networks. As these companies grow, they can graduate to the full version of Wi-Fi Watchdog, he said.

The Boston-based company also announced a partnership with Cisco through which Newbury has integrated its full Wi-Fi Watchdog solution with the San Jose-based networking vendor's line of Aironet WLAN access points.

Wi-Fi Watchdog uses a proprietary location tracking technology that's able to identify threats to the wireless network and alert administrators, Conley said. "It uses RF pattern matching to track devices to specific rooms and locations inside of buildings, making it an effective tool for defining physical perimeters of the network," he said.

Many of Newbury's customers are in multi-tenant, multifloor buildings where there's a need to set rules governing connections between devices inside and outside, Conley said.Newbury sells hardware and software, but the company is focusing increasingly on the latter, Conley said. He said the partnership with Cisco allows Cisco customers to use existing WLAN infrastructure to better secure their networks.

"Anybody who is interested in secure networks wants to deploy Cisco, and the integration of Newbury's location tracking technology will add an extra layer of protection," Conley says.

Wi-Fi Watchdog EWS is priced at $9,995 and is available immediately.