What types of wireless devices are employees connecting to your organization’s network? Not sure? This could spell disaster for your network.

 

In today’s wireless world, employees are bringing a diverse range of network compatible devices to work. Common gadgets such as iPhones, laptop computers, media players, and wireless access points are capable of disrupting network operations and resulting in theft of confidential data. Employee mobile devices can make your company’s wireless network traffic vulnerable to threats. Uncontrolled wireless networks operating between clients without an access point — are another top rogue threat.

 

So how do you maintain wireless security in the midst of all these threats? The best way to detect rogue wireless devices is to regularly discover your network and check for unauthorized/unsecure WAPs. You can use free tools such as Kismet or NetStumbler to detect rogue wireless access points, however there can be limitations to their effectiveness. Finding an unauthorized WAP behind your security perimeter is troubling news, but not finding one that is connected into your network is even worse.

 

So what should you do? For a more comprehensive and automated discovery of your network, make sure your existing NMS has Layer 2 Switch Port Mapping capabilities or if you don’t have an existing solution, consider dopplerVUE, a proven network management system.

 

With dopplerVUE, you can get a complete device view including the switch port it is connected to, it's current up/down status, the amount of traffic over the interface and any alert conditions. If you want to view a switch and a list of every connected item, simply choose the switch name instead of the end target device name.

 

After identifying the threat immediately block the IP address of the WAP device at the switch where it's connected. This will give you with enough time to find the physical device while the user is trying to discover what happened to the network connection.

 

By ensuring that only authorized and secured devices operate on the network you can improve security and reduce network chatter and increase bandwidth utilization.