RSA '07: Vendors bolster wireless and mobile security offerings

Two vendors this week plan to unveil new or improved mobile security products for the enterprise, staging the news at the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Network Chemistry is updating its radio frequency scanning software and start-up Yoggie Security Systems begins shipping its innovative gateway device to secure mobile laptops as if they were desktop PCs.

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The breadth represented by the two products reflects the range of challenges facing enterprises for whom mobile computing and wireless connectivity are becoming essential features of the enterprise network. Attendees this year have a choice of at least 14 sessions and tutorials specifically focused on wireless and mobile security, including “Wireless [intrusion-detection system] challenges and vulnerabilities,” “Portable threats: securing the corporate endpoint against removable media,” and “Securing the modern mobile workforce: let’s move beyond Wi-Fi.” In addition, general sessions such as those on VoIP threats, criteria for unified threat management, and enterprise security architectures now devote time to mobile and wireless security issues.

Network Chemistry has made changes in a new release of RFprotect Scanner, a rackmounted appliance with software, which detects devices such as access points and wireless-equipped laptops that attach to the network. The product, through a downloaded agent, then creates a ‘fingerprint’ of each device’s radio signature, then compares this with Network Chemistry’s database of such fingerprints to identify the wireless device, and determine if it represents a threat.

The new scanner release now can identify consumer-grade access points, the kind available in retail stores from vendors such as Linksys and NetGear. These products often incorporate a firewall on their WAN port, blocking most identification techniques. Scanner now launches its exploring agent program, called RogueScanner, to access the device via its LAN connection. Also new is the ability to detect and identify Ethernet-connected laptops that also have their wireless adapter active: with the right software, such devices can be used by wireless attackers as a bridge into the wired network.

The fingerprint database has been expanded: it now can match a scan with over 800 different access points, and more than 10,000 other network device types. Altogether, over one million devices have been cataloged.

Also new is a graphical incident management system, a workflow program for managers that shows what has been done, and left undone, by whom, and when after a suspicious device has been identified. Finally, the company has revamped the reporting features, creating a centralized snapshot of incident and trend reports, and adding an automatic compliance report for the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, part of which calls for the ability to identify and stop unauthorized access attempts, including those over wireless links.

The new version of RFprotect Scanner starts at $15,000.