Plugging holes

At a wired network, one can to some degree, restrict the access to the network by physical means, while the geographical range of a wireless network will leave it open to attack. The wireless network range will more often than not be significantly greater than the office or home it's meant to cover, thereby leaving the door open for a hacker to sniff on all the traffic and gain unauthorised access to internal network resources, as well as the Internet.

In a bid to eliminate more security gaps, regulators in the US are calling for manufacturers to warn on wireless security, and provide Wi-Fi guidance. The warnings would have to contain information on how to secure files, folders and connections.

The concern is that wireless Internet connections can be used by anyone with Wi-Fi capability within the range of the transmitter unless they are secured.

McAfee's Bell agreed with the idea circulating overseas. Given that 29 per cent of consumers did not turn on security, adding a warning sticker would be a responsible measure.

"Feedback from wireless vendors is that when they turn off security to reduce the number of technical support calls, it is left to the user to learn how to secure the device."

With an assortment of wireless flavours on the market today, there's a push for wireless broadband. Big talk is being circulated by the BigAir folks surrounding market opportunities for resellers in the wireless broadband space.

CEO, Jason Ashton, said the company was trawling for resellers, integrators, ISPs and telcos. He said the broadband market was expected to grow at an annual rate of 25 per cent during the next four years.

The BigAir service is in its sweet spot with companies of 10-100 users, but can scale up or down to organisations with as few as five users.

"There's a lot of demand for a mobility service," Ashton said. "In the SME arena, users want broadband on the move, laptop-based or PDA-based access to email and the office network."

Partners can expect to make 30 per cent margins on the BigAir service, he said.

Ashton encouraged them to take the wireless broadband message out to accounting firms, banks, legal offices and consultancies as well as general corporate arena, where huge opportunity was brewing.

Signal distribution, where cellular signals are redistributed inside buildings in a bid to improve voice and data services, is an emerging wireless skill in high demand.

When peddling wireless access points - which transmit and receive radio frequencies for wireless enabled devices to communicate with - D-Link's Famularo said dealers should highlight features like support for the Wireless Distribution System (WDS).

This allows users to establish a broad wireless network infrastructure by linking several wireless access points with WDS links. WDS allows a wireless network to be expanded using multiple access points without the need for a wired backbone to link them. "This is practical in environments where pulling cables is costly or physically impossible," he said.