Bluesocket Shipping WG-1000 Wireless Gateway For Secure Wireless Local Area Networks

Security, QoS & Management Needs For 802.11b/Bluetooth WLANs Now Met

Bluesocket Inc., a developer of wireless local area network (WLAN) solutions for managing, securing and connecting wireless devices to corporate networks and the Internet, today announced that in October 2001 it will begin commercial shipments of the Bluesocket WG-1000 Wireless Gateway.

Bluesocket's unique product offers a scalable, single component solution for solving the security, quality of service (QoS), and management issues facing enterprises and service providers who are deploying IEEE 802.11b (aka WiFi) and Bluetooth-based wireless networks. The WG-1000 is RF-standards-agnostic and is also compatible with future WLAN standards, such as 802.11a, 802.11g and HiperLAN2.

Configured via a Web browser, the WG-1000 Wireless Gateway sits between an enterprise's access points (wireless base stations) and the rest of the network, acting as a gateway between wireless and wired components.

Bluesocket's WG-1000 Wireless Gateway meets four critical requirements for wireless LAN security and management:

- The sender of the data can be identified and verified

- What users may access or may do on a network can be pre-defined

- The data is protected from being altered or compromised by unauthorized manipulation

- The data in the networks can't be read by any unauthorized users

"Bluesocket, like other forward-looking companies in the wireless/mobile space, will have a strong proposition when it comes to minimizing the total cost of ownership for enterprise and service provider customers. The WG-1000 Wireless Gateway should prove advantageous for reducing the cost of managing wireless networks and effectively guarding against security threats," said IDC analyst, Jason Smolek.

The WLAN Security Problem: WEP's Fatal Flaws & VPN Limitations

Security is a major concern with WLANs. According to reports issued by the University of California/Berkeley and Rice University/AT& T Labs, the encryption protocol most commonly used on WLANs (known as Wired Equivalent Privacy, or WEP) is flawed and vulnerable to being cracked. Typically, unauthorized users can gain access to a WEP-`secured' WLAN by simply being within its broadcasting range.

According to report issued on August 9, 2001, Gartner Research projects "by year-end 2002, 30 percent of enterprises will suffer serious security exposures from deploying wireless local area networks (WLANs) without implementing the proper security."

To overcome WEP's shortcomings, respected industry organizations such as the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) have recommended using Virtual Private Networks (VPN)s to provide security for WLANs. Unfortunately the current state of VPNs represent an incomplete and impractical, stop-gap, point solution:

- VPNs require all the wireless Access Points to route all traffic directly back to the Internet firewall, even if they are in different buildings or different geographic locations

- Most VPNs provide only binary access to the company network - you can either see the whole network or nothing at all

- VPN products do not support PPTP and so can not provide better security to handheld personal organizers

- The cost to maintain a VPN with a high density of users and acceptable performance is prohibitive

The Bluesocket WG-1000 Wireless Gateway transcends the limitations of VPN-based security solutions by delivering a comprehensive system architecture to secure and manage wireless LANs:

1) IPsec and PPTP Security

Bluesocket's Wireless Gateway uses IPsec (Internet Protocol Security) and PPTP (Point to Point Tunneling Protocol) to secure and authenticate information between networks and their users; to prevent unauthorized access; ensure two-way authentication and protect users from eavesdropping.

2) Role Based Access Control

Bluesocket provides role-based access control by which users can be authenticated against a local database (for standalone operation) or an existing corporate database through a username/password log-on combination. Bluesocket's solution manages the network authorization process allowing different categories of users to be given access to different parts of the network--a significant improvement over VPN-based "all or nothing" access.

Bluesocket's role-based approach enables different levels of access control, encryption and QoS to be assigned to different individuals or groups of people accessing the wireless LAN. For example, visitors to a corporation may be allowed to access the Internet at low data rates simply by entering their email address. Each WG-1000 Wireless Gateway can be separately configured so a particular role can be defined with different privileges in different locations. For example, an "engineer" role could be defined with full access in the engineering department, but more limited access to highly confidential resources in the finance department.

3) WLAN Management Features

The Bluesocket solution allows for central management of large wireless LAN networks by making it possible to manage and configure multiple WG-1000's spread throughout the organization via a simple, single, web-based interface. The WG-1000 supports also supports hot-standby--ensuring continuous system availability and a highly reliable network. Bluesocket's Wireless Gateway has been architected so that in the future a single network can contain access points supporting both 802.11b and emerging WLAN standards (e.g. Bluetooth, 802.11a, c, HyperLAN). This will allow IT departments to operate both 802.11b and Bluetooth in the same premises and avoid the need for completely separate networks with different management structures within their enterprise.

4) QoS Issues Addressed

Quality of Service (QoS) is an issue in WLANs because the radio interface is a shared resource. In existing networks it is possible for a single user to hog all the bandwidth, preventing other users from getting their fair share. Bluesocket's Wireless Gateway guards against bandwidth hogging since users are assigned bandwidth according to their role and their applications.

The Bluesocket WG-1000 Wireless Gateway has been in beta trials in the United States and Europe since the spring of 2001 in offices, universities and at Microsoft's Envisioning Center, outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Availability and Price

Commercial shipments of the Bluesocket WG-1000 Wireless Gateway will commence October 1, 2001. Pricing starts at U.S. $5995.


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