NetSeal Technologies' Mobile Private Network architecture adds security to corporate WLANs that rely on the flawed WEP (Wired Equivalency Privacy) security specifications. The MPN architecture behind NetSeal's flagship software product RoamMate offers IPSec VPN security to WLAN environments and enables seamless mobility to end users and ease of management for network administrators.
The industry standard 802.11b WEP security protocol's flaws have been documented extensively by security experts, universities and the media and have rendered every vendor's WEP reliant products vulnerable to attack. According to research by the Gartner Group, half of all US corporations will have integrated wireless networks by the end of 2001.
"Those businesses are at risk," says NetSeal Technologies CEO Panu Pietikainen. "Tools that automate the process of cracking the WLANs using only WEP are now available for download by anyone on the Internet. IT staff are scrambling to find solutions that will secure existing WLAN environments, and in some cases, delaying implementations until the security issues are fixed in the next generation of WLAN hardware".
The major WLAN vendors initially downplayed the security problems with 802.11b, but as media attention and customer concern grew, they had little choice but to announce that they are working to resolve the authentication and other security problems. A satisfactory vendor solution may be unlikely to emerge soon, as the weaknesses exist at fundamental levels of the 802.11b WEP specification according to NetSeal's CEO. "According to some professionals in the security industry, the proposed WEP2 standard may be as vulnerable to hackers' attacks as the existing protocol," he explained.
NetSeal's RoamMate software provides an immediate way to secure existing corporate WLAN environments from unauthorized interception and access. The Mobile Private Network (MPN) architecture creates an intra-network IPSec compliant VPN using strong encryption and individual keys that can be changed as often as desired.
Another key benefit of the MPN architecture is it's seamless IP roaming: all users are securely authenticated and connected to the network regardless of place, time, access media or device (laptop, PC, PDA, mobile phone, etc.). Uninterrupted connections are made possible by IP roaming and between several different wired and wireless network types, including wired LANs, xDSL, cable-modem, ISDN, dial-up modem connections, wireless LANs and devices using Bluetooth, CDMA, TDMA and GPRS.
RoamMate provides wireless service operators with a secure and reliable product that enables them to service emerging WLAN hotspots and wireless access devices. Business users are able to connect any device securely to the corporate network from the office, from home, or from other remote locations when traveling. Users stay connected without reconfiguration when moving from one network node to another. RoamMate includes support for Network Address Translation (NAT), which allows the use of private IP addresses on the client side.
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