New independent report from Miercom reveals most top Wi-Fi solutions automatically detect and prevent all six wireless threat categories.
WatchGuard Technologies launched its new Trusted Wireless Environment framework, which helps businesses and solution providers to build Wi-Fi services that offer high performance, scalable management and verified, comprehensive security. This new initiative seeks to upset the status quo in the wireless market, which has prioritised performance over security. Organisations that build Trusted Wireless Environments can enjoy the performance and scalability, while at the same time ensuring protection against today’s most dangerous Wi-Fi attacks.
“Wi-Fi networks have always served as low-hanging fruit for cyber criminals looking to steal valuable information, primarily because vendors and businesses alike have made the mistake of looking at Wi-Fi security capabilities as an added benefit, rather than a primary feature,” said Ryan Orsi, Director of Product Management at WatchGuard Technologies. “We’re seeing a massive, industry-wide need to fundamentally re-evaluate what we expect from Wi-Fi products, so we’re advocating that businesses of every size – and even competing vendors – examine our framework for what it takes to build and operate a Trusted Wireless Environment. WatchGuard’s cloud-based secure Wi-Fi products are truly unique in that they offer both industry-leading performance and unrivalled protection against every known category of Wi-Fi security threat, all delivered in a package that’s easily managed and highly scalable.”
Trusted Wireless Environments
Organisations today are faced with the inherent responsibility of establishing trusted wireless environments that protect their employees, customers and intellectual property from hackers who can easily exploit the weak or non-existent security of traditional Wi-Fi networks.
Some choose to tackle this effort in-house, but many small to midsize businesses and organisations elect to outsource their IT, including Wi-Fi, to a trusted partner, which puts the responsibility for protection on the VAR, MSP or MSSP. The three core pillars of a Trusted Wireless Environment include:
- Performance: Businesses should never be forced to compromise security in favour of Wi-Fi performance to support user connections and client density.
- Scalable Management: With easy set-up and management, businesses should be able control their entire wireless network – regardless of size or complexity – from a single interface and execute key processes to safeguard the environment and its users.
- Verified Comprehensive Security: Many vendors operate under a haze of ambiguity when it comes to advertising security capabilities offered by their Wi-Fi solutions. Businesses need proof that their security solution can provide automatic protection from the six known Wi-Fi threat categories, allow legitimate external access points (APs) to operate in the same airspace and restrict users from connecting to unsanctioned Wi-Fi access points.
Assessing the Security Capabilities of Top Wi-fi Solutions
According to new research from Miercom, a product test centre, WatchGuard’s cloud-managed secure Wi-Fi solution is the only product on the market capable of automatically detecting and preventing every type of Wi-Fi security threat. These findings came from a new independent security assessment that examined four top Wi-Fi products for their ability to effectively prevent the six major Wi-Fi security threats: rogue access points, rogue clients, neighbouring APs, ad-hoc networks, evil twin APs (those with spoofed SSIDs), and misconfigured APs. This is the first Miercom assessment to analyse Wi-Fi products from a security perspective, illuminating significant issues with the built-in security of many wireless APs.
“Following our in-depth security assessment of competing wireless products, Miercom is pleased to award WatchGuard’s cloud-managed AP420 Wi-Fi solution with the Miercom Certified Secure accreditation for vastly superior performance in the detection and prevention of the top wireless security threats today,” said Robert Smithers, CEO of Miercom. “It’s clear that the performance comparisons we typically see for Wi-Fi solutions are missing key security criteria that could help customers make more well-informed buying decisions, so we believe the results of this never-before-done test speak to a critical need within the industry to reassess traditional Wi-Fi products from a security perspective.
Miercom’s independent assessment determined that WatchGuard was the only Wi-Fi vendor able to automatically detect and prevent all six wireless attack categories in just seconds, while maintaining performance.
In order to begin building Trusted Wireless Environments with WatchGuard’s secure wireless solutions, VARs and MSPs can purchase Secure Wi-Fi or Total Wi-Fi packages today. For more information about the need for greater security in the wireless market, download the full Miercom report here.
