Achilles Heel of Network Security
There are a number of areas where an enterprise, or an individual household, can fall short when it comes to network security. However, insecure wireless access points seem to be one of the largest, if not *the* largest network security achilles heel these days. The root cause of the TJX data breach earlier this year, the largest data security breach to date, has been traced to a retail store using the easily cracked WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption for their wireless network. Now, a study of 3,000 retail stores by AirDefense, Inc. has shown that half of those retail stores are running insecure wireless networks. They estimate that 25% are running with no encryption whatsoever, and another 25% are using the flawed WEP encryption that led to the TJX breach. The study, which was conducted at shopping areas in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta, as well as overseas in London and Paris, illustrates how far organizations have to go in securing their networks. You can read Many retailers easy to hack, study finds at Yahoo News for more information on the AirDefense survey.