Chapter 4: Security Considerations for Hotspot Services

Overview

This chapter focuses on the key issue of security. Security is an ongoing concern. In 1999, 70 percent of companies reported cyber-attacks, with more than a third experiencing six or more incidents. The American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers reported that For- tune 1000 companies lost more than $45 billion to theft of proprietary information. In an article on wireless local area networks (WLANs), Kim Getgen reinforces this point: “We began to hear [in 2001] about wireless network drive-by hacking incidents. From the Highway 101 corridor that connects San Francisco to the Silicon Valley, to the financial and technology districts of New York, Boston, and London, similar reports have been published by a number of different independent researchers. Sitting in the parking lots of reputable companies, or even driving down city streets, reporters, researchers, and ethical hackers were able to retrieve data....”^[1]

In a recent experiment, techie web site ExtremeTech set up a wireless laptop on a roof in Manhattan and discovered it could access 61 wireless networks, of which 48 were completely unsecured.^[2] In Silicon Valley, ExtremeTech found 100 networks, many accessible from within a car zooming down Highway 101, of which 66 lacked any kind of security.

This chapter aims at providing the designers of hotspot services with approaches, alternatives, tools, and methods to incorporate adequate security in their systems.

^[1]Kim Getgen, “Securing the air: Don’t let your wireless LAN be a moving target.” RSA Security, November 2001, www-106.ibm.com/ developerworks/library/wi-sec1/index.html?dwzone=wireless.

^[2]Dylan Tweney, “Are You Broadcasting Secrets Over the Airwaves?” www.business2.com/articles/web/0,1653,36044,FF.html. December 06, 2001.