May/June 2004

Eighty per cent of corporate networks are accessible from outside their buildings, according to a new report from global wireless security specialist Red-M. These include 66 per cent of banks, 60 per cent of financial services institutions, 100 per cent of education institutions and 79 per cent of IT companies, the organisation maintains.

According to chief executive Karl W Feilder: "Once there is any sort of wireless device on the premises it acts as a point of insecurity by broadcasting company information over the airwaves. Sitting in your parking lot up to 300 feet away from your building with a laptop and an inexpensive piece of software, an outsider could easily see the information being freely broadcast."

How real is the threat to you? That's perhaps harder to measure, but as Feilder says: "Wireless is highly promiscuous and it's everywhere today whether we like it or not, from PDAs and mobile phones to notebook computers."