How big a problem for wireless ISPs is bandwidth theft? How often are hackers posing as customers and using your network bandwidth without paying for it? You may never know. That’s half the problem. Unless legitimate customers call and say they’re being denied access, it’s unlikely you’ll ever detect bandwidth thieves on your network. Here’s how theft happens. If you use MAC address authentication as your only security mechanism, especially if you have an 802.11b-based wireless infrastructure, it’s ridiculously easy for savvy hackers to break in. The MAC (Media Access Control) address is the supposedly fixed identifier on a network client device. Too many WISPs – and enterprise WLAN managers too–do a quick and dirty kind of authentication that requires no effort on the part of the subscriber/user and adds little overhead to the network–which is why they do it this way, says Jim Portaro, CTO and co-founder of NeTeam, an Akron, Ohio-based wireless systems integrator. Full Story
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