Making wireless Networks more secure through Biometrics

THE displays in the Wi-Fi network shop are filling up with the newest solutions fresh from the manufacturing plant. These solutions are prepared, promising to enhance every Wi-Fi network administrators' experience with prized, golden tickets of the best Wi-Fi network security capabilities. Moreover, biometrics technology seems to be the solution of choice for network incorporation.

On the other hand, the overall public and corporate paranoia about security threats continues to build even with the constant invention and upgrade of Wi-Fi network (WLAN) security. Gartner, an IT research and advisory company, asked close to two hundred business technology groups in North America and Europe about a year ago, on how they felt about the WLAN systems. The reply was that sixty four percent plan to increase wireless installations in the next six months; however, security is still their top issue.

Constant security warnings and actual violations can give cause to worry whether your laptop or PDA is really secure from hackers in a home Wi-Fi network, public or corporate wireless location. Also keep in mind that that Gartner predicts two-thirds of critical corporate data resides on employee workstations or notebooks, not on servers, which increases the concern.

Just about eighty five percent of large U.S. enterprises admit to having suffered an IT security incident over the past twelve months, and the number of violations continues to rise by seventeen percent since 2003. As stated by Computer Associates, a producer of IT administrative applications.

Mobile devices and Wi-Fi systems continue to progress amid all of the security threats, breaches and concerns. According to the research firm Current Analysis Laptops have been outselling desktops in the United States for more than a year. A noteworthy indicator is most likely due to the majority of laptops providing Wi-Fi features. The vast propagation of mobile utilities, as well as home, public and enterprise WLANs is sure to carry on. According to a supplier of data and services to help mobile experts and computer enthusiasts find and hook up to the wireless Internet, there was an 87-percent increase in hotspots from the year 2004 to 2005 on a global level.

Although it is true that, mobility is great for the majority of users, it can be rather troubling for IT security personnel and the unlucky users who have had their apparatuses and information hacked, cracked, pirated and damaged. It is more than obvious that IT professionals are not just concerned about the security of their corporate WLAN, but the numerous hotspots that mobile workers are operating within, including the WLANs at their homes.

Just about a year ago, a virus was established which had the ability to jump from cell phones to personal computers. also, as reported by  McAfee, more than two hundred  malware applications appeared in 2005 that were designed specifically for mobile apparatuses.

For sure, viruses, only a few of the security threats, or data destroyers, that the mobile computing society must be prepared for and fight against are malware and spyware. Corporate terrorism as well as Identity theft are no longer just hot buzzwords, they have in fact become very real and tragic events.

An arsenal of Security equipment

Suppliers as well as service providers are still trying to find security measures that can actually prevent security violations Although the growth of Wi-Fi shows a great deal of potential.

The patrons want to employ traditional, in-the-box network defense applications, such as firewalls as well as VPNs, and have the ability to layer that with intrusion prevention and authentication on access points and mobile equipments.

A major issue is that unauthorized users are able to connect to the network and misuse enterprise resources, even with these measures in place. Because of these concerns, a great deal of  enterprises either use the evolving security technology reluctantly or have delayed its utilization until all security issues are adequately addressed, measures verified, and complexity and prices to implement greatly decreased.

There are a great deal of security measures that have been installed and established, including the Wi-Fi Alliance's closely-related implementation protocol, the Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) as well as those based on the 2004 Wi-Fi security standard (the IEEE's 802.11i).

From firewalls to passwords a lot can be done to layer security measures on a Wi-Fi network by users and providers. To start with, carry out the list of security procedures that are suggested in manuals that come with access points and other Wi-Fi infrastructure solutions. In addition to that, consider measures such as utilizing a VPN, disabling remote administration, keeping a clean wireless networks preferred directory, permitting security on your router, picking a new password, enabling WPA encryption instead of WEP, enabling Web-mail security, refraining from supplying your SSID, turning on MAC addressing, as well as disabling ad-hoc mode.

Who Are You, Really?

Believe it or not, this multi-layered, Wi-Fi security approach still does not answer the question that should be asked of everyone attempting to access a network which is: "Are you really that whom you claim to be?"

In order to answer this question, the identity management with biometric authentication has evolved as the highest form of security. This development is aiding to drive the growth of devices with embedded biometric scanners and plug-and-play, biometric Wi-Fi accessories. The vast majority of these equipments feature scanning technology of the human fingerprint which is the most historically popular human identifier of all time.

The main entities driving the market growth are Microsoft, the International Biometric Industry Association (IBIA) and BioAPI. If truth be told, Microsoft is incorporating biometric authentication technology into its next version of Windows®, which further certifies the technology and its broad endorsements.

The utmost benefit of biometric identity management technology is based on who you are, rather than what you have or particular information that you are aware of, such as a password or an ID card. The technology of Biometrics is not necessarily supposed to replace the existing methods of identification, but to strengthen them or to construct upon their existing structure.

The utilization of a fingerprint for validation has been on the rise, as people have discovered many problems with password and token-based security interfaces. In addition to that, in the last few years, the number of online accounts each user has considerably increased. It is not unusual for people to have more than ten online accounts, and remembering this many passwords is not an easy job, particularly for accounts that are not regularly logged into. As an attempt to solve this issue, people typically write their account information on actual pieces of paper or even little booklets. The complicatedness in managing many passwords also translates to an increased number of calls to IT support departments for technical assistance. A comparable dilemma occurs with hardware tokens for verification.

This leaves users carrying a lot of tokens --one for each account of an internet site. In addition to that, it is easy to lose tokens that are hardware or physically tangible. Authentication that is based on fingerprints supplies a solution to all of the problems associated with passwords as well as hardware indications. In view of the fact that fingerprint technology has become affordable and reliable, its use in user authentication is on a brisk increase.

Enter Biometric Fingerprint Technology
Market growth of fingerprint technology also has been dependent on the demand for a quick, cost-effective and secure way to identify people. These demands also are major considerations for Wi-Fi access and use. Recent developments to match these requirements in Wi-Fi network fingerprint technology has produced a DSP-based network authentication device that connects to Wi-F,i WPA-compliant access points.

This Wi-Fi network biometric security device communicates directly with fingerprint readers connected to mobile devices to control access at the first point of contact to the network -- the Wi-Fi access point. SX-650 NetGuard from Silex Technology is the latest in Wi-Fi network biometric security technology.

Wi-Fi network owners need a secure way of authenticating users, not just their equipment, and answer very specifically who is using their equipment to connect to the network, where they are getting access from, and what data they are accessing on the network or on the Internet. Forcing users to physically authenticate themselves using the fingerprint reader helps prevent others from accessing the network while roaming spots such as a campus, house, hotel room, a seat next to you or in a car.

Exponential Acceleration
Biometric fingerprint technology can be used for numerous applications such as financial services for secure checking or ATM transactions or for government employee identification.

Biometrics will continue to evolve and drastically influence many private enterprises and the government. By combining its capabilities and benefits with Wi-Fi, concern over common WLAN security issues concedes to confidence, and both technologies can flourish, even tempting those who do not have a sweet tooth to the Wi-Fi network candy store of innovation.

This article originally appeared in the September 2006 issue of Security Products, pgs. 66-67