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Wireless security: Interop sees intrusion prevention for WLANs announced

Intrusion prevention on WLANs isn't normal; detection is all you can usually hope for. That's being changed, as AirTight joins the intrusion prevention club with an announcement in Las Vegas, at Interop of "SpectraGuard Enterprise 3.0 WiFi IPS (WIPS) firewall." And another, at the same show, is from Network Chemistry, which has redesigned its RF sensors - also offering intrusion prevention and rogue AP management.

The AirTight release says its new product "is delivering multiple industry firsts in wireless intrusion protection including simultaneous detection and prevention of not just one, but multiple threats from a single sensor, and comprehensive threat prevention including updates to counter the most serious attacks - MAC spoofing APs, Evil Twin/honey pot APs and Denial of Service threats."

And it concludes: "With this release, SpectraGuard Enterprise 3.0 is the only solution that provides comprehensive auto-classification and prevention of all major classes of WiFi vulnerabilities."

The release from Network Chemistry claims that "RFprotect System 4 is a sweeping upgrade to Network Chemistry’s current RFprotect products" and says: "Key additions to RFprotect System 4 are a new RF analysis sensor, new application modules, and an even tighter integration between the Distributed and Mobile software components."

 RFprotect’s latest generation of distributed sensors are where the company was able to gain much of the cost reduction breakthroughs, it says. "Specifically redesigned for cost savings and half the price of competitive offerings, the new RFprotect Sensors also include an innovation called PortSaver."

This eliminates the need for new cable pulls, switch ports, and power injectors to connect remote sensors, says the company. "In effect, PortSaver reduces installation costs by $500 to $1,000 per sensor. This cost savings is huge in larger deployments, so for the first time, robust WLAN management tools can be economically deployed across the entire enterprise."

Analysis at Network World says: "Both AirTight Networks and Network Chemistry combine radio frequency sensors and management software to create in effect an alarmed perimeter around a wireless LAN and then take action to block detected threats."

You can see some pix from Interop by searching  Flickr for "interop" tags.