WOBURN, MASS. - OpenReach is upgrading its IP Security and Secure Sockets Layer services to include protection of wireless LANs by using secure tunnels and then melding these local wireless tunnels into secure WAN connections over the Internet.

Version 5.0 of OpenReach IP WAN Services software lets OpenReach security gateways create SSL or IPSec sessions with any flavor of 802.11 wireless devices, shoring up the wireless security that many users don't trust. The gateway can tunnel that connection through to a gateway at another corporate site using the Internet as the WAN connection.

OpenReach is doing this via its software upgrade and by requiring a third network interface card (NIC) in the server hardware on which OpenReach's gateway software runs. The third NICs create separate network segments for connecting to wireless access points.

"This will enable us to buy dumb access points and use the OpenReach [gateways] for authentication [to the wireless network]," says Marc Palano, IT director for ITW, a manufacturing conglomerate in Glenview, Ill., that uses about 400 OpenReach gateways.

With this new feature, OpenReach is getting in early on a trend among IPSec VPN vendors of marrying local wireless and WAN security. Recently, SonicWall introduced a device for small offices that acts as a wireless access point, establishes IPSec tunnels with local wireless devices and also creates IPSec connections from that site to other sites over the Internet.

This fits in with an emerging move toward borderless networks where the LAN and WAN blend with less of a wall between the two, says Michael Suby, senior research analyst with Stratecast Partners. OpenReach's LAN-WAN secure wireless bridge can simplify setting up security between sites, he says.

"Perhaps you work with one vendor for your LAN and a different vendor for your WAN. Now you're working in wireless, and you want a single security policy without gaps. In that case there is value to having a single-vendor approach," Suby says.

Potential vulnerabilities are a key factor that business IT executives weigh in deciding whether to use wireless gear, according to participants in a recent user roundtable held by Sage Research. "They are extremely apprehensive about wireless LAN security, to the extent that several have not deployed WLANs at all due to security concerns," says Chris Neal, a research director at Sage.