BANGALORE, INDIA: Securing a wireless network has been a hot topic of discussion for quite a long time. The convenience and anonymity of wireless networks makes them hacker’s playgrounds. Most of the users are unaware of the vulnerabilities of wireless networks, making it easily accessible to hackers.

In an interaction with CIOL, Vishak Raman, country manager India, Fortinet Inc., talks about how defenseless our wireless networks are and what all can be done to protect them. 

CIOL: Do you think there is change in nature of wireless threats over the last couple of years? Or, the threats have been the same for both wired and wireless networks?

Vishak Raman: There has been a dramatic shift in the nature of network threats in general for the past two years that affects both wired and wireless networks. The perception that wireless threats have increased could be due to several trends that have been building up over the last five years or so.

For example, there is the growing proliferation of 802.11b/g/n networks and the ubiquity of smartphones and PDAs that can access Internet content. Apart form this, there is a shift to packet-switched IP-based networks for mobile providers and telecommunications companies to support Internet services such as email and web browsing.

Network threats that used to affect wired networks, such as hacking, viruses, Trojans and worms can now affect wireless networks too because the transport protocol used by both types of networks is the same: IP.

CIOL: Why do you think mobile devices become primary targets of attackers?
VR: Mobile devices and wireless-enabled notebook computers are particularly susceptible to network threats such as hacking because their users are often using a public network.

For example, notebook users often share folders when within the corporate network, but once they leave the office and connect via a public wireless “hot spot”, they frequently forget to turn off the file sharing and thus other users on the same wireless network can see the shares and, if they are unscrupulous, may copy files out of that shared folder, or worse, upload malware into the shared folder.