Protecting Wireless Network
Many gateway routers include a wireless access point, usually with security disabled by default. So even if your employees aren’t using wireless access, strangers sitting in your parking lot might be. Make sure security is enabled on all your wireless access points. A well-meaning employee could have picked up an inexpensive access point at the local computer store and attached it to the network so people in the conference room could access to their e-mail. The risk goes beyond just losing a little bandwidth: With access to your internal LAN, outsiders can access open Windows file shares that aren’t properly secured.
To locate and identify rogue wireless devices on your network, just walk around with an RF scanner, such as Wild-Packets’ AiroPeek, Network Instruments’ Network Observer, or Berkeley Varitronics’ YellowJacket. If you use scanning software available in many wireless
access points and third-party utilities, remember to check all wireless channels, including 802.11a, b, and g, even if you use only one flavor.
AiroPeek NX
This powerful wireless packet analyzer supports the decoding of data packets (requiring keys where WEP is enabled) and has user-definable alarms, triggers, and notifications.
A simpler version is available for $995. $3,495 direct with one year maintenance.
Website: www.wildpackets.com
NetStumbler 0.4.0
This free site survey tool can help you plan locations for access points. It captures signal statistics and - more importantly - can help you locate rogue access points.
Free from NetStumbler.com
Website: www.netstumbler.com
[...] You would be pretty surprised to know how many people set up a broadband connection, get a nice wireless router for it and then proceed to broadcast their connection for all within range to see and indeed use. All the more worrying is that if you use it as a network hub, then you can give people access to shared folders on your PC. So many people do this in fact that there is a hobby grown up around it called wardriving, where techies drive around with a wireless enabled laptop and use a piece of software, often NetStumbler, to see how many insecure wireless networks they can find. [...]