IBM develops security monitor for wireless network

Ilaina Jonas

HAWTHORNE: International Business Machines Corp. on Thursday said it has

developed the first technology security monitor to ensure hackers and intruders

stay out of corporate local wireless networks.

The tool, the wireless security monitor, is designed to allow overseers of

802.11 wireless networks - the most common wireless network large companies use

within their buildings - to ensure data and e-mails are secure as they fly

through the air riding on radio waves.

This type of wireless local network allows a corporation's wired local

network, creeping throughout a building, to extend to wireless devices through

an access point - a server that acts as a liaison between a corporation's

hundreds or thousands of wireless devices and its wired network.

But the network becomes vulnerable when radio waves wireless devices use leak

out of the building.

"A hacker who's in a car driving by, or who parks in the parking lot,

can actually connect through the access point and attack the company's network

and eavesdrop on e-mail going by," Dave Safford, manager of network

security at IBM Research, told Reuters.

The wireless security monitor itself does not protect the network, data or

e-mail. Rather, it allows the network overseer to evaluate the operations of an

access point's security technology - encryption, which wraps around data like a

shield and authentication, which verifies that the wireless users is allowed

entry.

"It's a management issue," Safford said. "Trying to find what

access points are out there, and whether or not they're properly installed is

the really difficult problem."

The wireless security monitor software operates on a personal digital

assistant. It provides a clear graphical picture displaying all the access

points within a building and which have their security measures working properly

and which ones don't.

Access points have somewhat limited ranges," Safford said, "The

best way is to go into a building and walk around and sniff for them. Until now

there's literally been no way to tell how many access points you have and

whether they've been installed correctly."

The device is still in a testing phase. IBM has not yet decided whether to

sell the device as a product, or a service via the company's vast Services

division, Safford said.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.