SOURCE: AirTight Networks

September 17, 2007 08:00 ET

AirTight Offers Industry's First and Only Proactive WEP Protection

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwire - September 17, 2007) -

--  SpectraGuard Enterprise Now Provides WEPGuard, Wireless Threat Risk
    Mitigation for Legacy Systems
    
--  Notable Retail Breaches Demonstrate Urgent Need for Active Wireless
    Intrusion Prevention
    
--  New Features Help Retailers Earn PCI Compliance and Protect Their
    Current Investment
    

AirTight Networks, the leading provider of wireless intrusion prevention systems (WIPS), today announced the addition of WEPGuard™ to SpectraGuard Enterprise®. SpectraGuard Enterprise is now the industry's first and only proactive wireless intrusion prevention system to block and locate active WEP cracking attacks, detect and stop intruders using spoofed identity and compromised WEP keys and provide deep visibility into passive cracking exposure of legacy systems using WEP so that the risk can be accurately assessed. While WEP is fundamentally broken, WEPGuard provides the best available solution for companies to go beyond passive techniques and actively manage and mitigate risk.

These new capabilities, which will be available in SpectraGuard Enterprise in the fourth quarter of 2007, help retailers to meet the most recent version PCI DSS -- version 1.1 -- which added specific security requirements to protect networks and payment card data from wireless threats and risks. The PCI DSS is a multifaceted security standard that includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. This comprehensive Standard is intended to help organizations proactively protect customer account data.

"The overwhelming feedback at DEFCON 15 this year from our presentation on failure of WEP chaffing, as well as the publicity surrounding several high profile wireless retail breaches, indicates an urgent need especially in that sector for something to help protect legacy systems until such time as upgrades to more secure protocols such as WPA and WPA 2 can be affected," said Pravin Bhagwat, CTO for AirTight Networks. "While some suggest that injecting chaff into the data stream is an effective way to confuse hackers, it is a passive approach which continuously eats up bandwidth and merely masks the problem leading to security by obscurity. Only active protection gives any measure of protection along with other best practices."

SpectraGuard Enterprise with WEPGuard allows customers to:

--  Gain deeper visibility into passive cracking exposure and receive
    alerts when weak initialization vectors (IVs) are detected in the data
    stream
    
--  Block active WEP cracking attacks by receiving alerts when active WEP
    cracking tools are used and to locate the attacker
    
--  Stop intrusion even if the WEP keys are compromised
    

"With the introduction of WEPGuard, AirTight is providing the next generation of WEP security," said David King, chairman and CEO of AirTight. "This obviates the need for a passive approach to protecting WEP keys and addresses the current wireless security needs of our customers who are dealing with maintaining the wireless security of expensive legacy systems. Previous attempts to secure WEP have simply masked the keys and been ineffective. The best approach is to mitigate risk and proactively stop and locate intruders without creating the negative consequences to network performance caused by injecting large amounts of traffic into the data stream. That is what WEPGuard provides.”

AirTight offers a complete wireless intrusion prevention system to cover retail networks to help detect, classify, prevent and locate wireless threats. The products can be purchased as a traditional WIPS security system or as a managed wireless security service. AirTight also offers a wireless planning service to help retailers who are planning to deploy wireless in their stores, warehouses, distribution centers, or offices -- to ensure adequate coverage and security. More information about AirTight's retail wireless security solutions can be found on AirTight's website at: http://www.airtightnetworks.net/solutions/solution_retail.html.

About AirTight Networks

Founded in 2002, AirTight Networks is the leader in wireless intrusion prevention solutions (WIPS). AirTight's award-winning SpectraGuard family of WIPS products and services delivers around-the-clock wireless policy enforcement and automatic intrusion prevention against wireless security threats while monitoring wireless LAN performance to ensure maximum network uptime and capacity. The AirTight SpectraGuard solution family has achieved industry leadership based on patented technology that eliminates false alarms, blocks wireless threats immediately and automatically, and locates wireless devices and events with pinpoint precision. AirTight Networks is a privately held company based in Mountain View, CA. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.AirTightNetworks.net.

AirTight Networks, and the AirTight Networks logo are trademarks; and AirTight and SpectraGuard are registered trademarks of AirTight Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.