Use Strong Authentication Encryption and VPN to protect wireless users

Wireless users are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. In this attack, hackers can intentionally imitate a legitimate connection to intercept user information.

In any wireless hotspot, someone with ulterior motives may be near you. Pretend to be a hot spot and trick you into connecting to him. Although such attacks cannot happen frequently, they do exist. Hackers can use this connection to snoop on your computer, obtain your user ID and password, and access the company's system. If the hacker is smart enough to get your user ID and password, he will know how to use the data.

The potential problems caused by hot spots are nothing new to the company's security team. However, the amplification of hot spots makes the problem more serious.

　　

The company's strategy must keep pace

In reality, company strategies are often difficult to keep up. Many companies do not pay attention to hot issues, but what should they do when employees are not within the company's control? For example, although the company policy may prevent employees from transmitting company information to their home computers, several other companies have provided adequate protection, can you ensure that an employee does not transmit unencrypted sensitive data from a hotspot to a computer at home via email?

Hotspot Security

Even if the connection is secure, the email is not automatically encrypted when the employee is in the hotspot area, and the mobile device is not automatically connected to the company's VPN. In addition, the security options of mobile devices are not always correctly configured, which further increases their weaknesses.

However, even if IT is able to identify these problems for employees who are using hot spots, IT does not mean that these problems are easily fixed. The need for people to access the company's network through their laptops or smart phones is unavoidable. This is the so-called IT consumption. The consumption of IT makes IT more difficult to strengthen company policies and configurations on individual devices.

Cost also plays a role. The persistence of VPN can provide protection, but not all companies can afford the VPN. In addition, in the current economic environment, companies are reluctant to increase costs.

Human factors are also important.

The company needs to do more work to solve potential hot issues. Security experts believe that many people may think that their information is not so important and their training work is not so orderly. When using hot spots, users must assume more responsibilities, but IT should make their work easier.

What can IT do?

Companies can use strong authentication, automatic connection to VPN, and automatic encryption to address hot spot risks. IT also needs to pay attention to patch management for all the devices used for work, and to pay attention to policies and processes. IT should ensure that the equipment of all employees can be correctly configured.

When a device connects to the company's network, IT can take proactive and preventive measures. When an employee's device is connected to the company's network, the company may wish to perform an inspection to ensure that the configuration is correct.

The company should set up terminal devices to ensure that employees' machines are scanned every time they connect to the company's network. This may lead to a little delay in employees' work, but it is one of the important ways to educate employees' safety. In addition, this is a cost that the company or its employees must bear to ensure a safer network environment.

By analyzing the use practices of wireless networks in recent years, we can be certain that the key to ensuring that key data is not leaked and causing damage is to automate security measures as much as possible.