April 23, 2006

WiFi Security Mandated in NY County

Well the first bill to mandate that businesses secure their WiFi networks has become law in Westchester County New York. There are MANY businesses that use WiFi networks but do not properly secure them. These insecure networks mean that THEIR CUSTOMERS are in danger because hackers can relatively easily access this data.

As the law reads, from the Westchester web site, it affects "?any commercial business that stores, utilizes or otherwise maintains personal information electronically"? to take minimum security measures to "?secure and prevent unauthorized (wireless) access to all such information." Security measures can be as simple as installing a network firewall, changing the system¬?s default SSID (network name) or disabling SSID broadcasting -? all of which can be achieved with minimal effort and little or no additional cost to the system operator.

For example, a retail establishment that uses a wireless network to process credit card transactions could install a firewall, one of the easiest and least expensive ways to guard a network from attack.

I think this law is good and hopefully will force businesses (at least those in Westchester) to take more serious their wireless networks and more importantly the data that is on them. Email this article to someone

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