| Origin: TechRepublic (http://www.techrepublic.com)
Date: 14/07/2003
Interference between wireless access points of different networks will occur if the wireless access points are within range of each other. In one incident I discovered, a dental office using the same building as a hospital experienced problems when network traffic from the hospital's wireless network and the dental office's network "leaked" into both networks.
The dentist's office used a wireless bridge connected to a DSL line, but both the hospital and the dental office were using the same private network numbers and netmask. This resulted in bizarre problems for both the hospital and the dental office until both networks were secured with WEP.
While WEP can fix the bulk of the network traffic leakage issues, WEP won't make your network secure. Anyone who wants to poach network access can simply run a copy of the open source Airsnort program, decode the WEP keys for a network, and gain access. As more companies implement wireless networks, traffic leakage issues and security flaws will become more of a concern. And the continued availability of low-cost, self-installed wireless network equipment won't make the problem any simpler to fix. Interference between wireless and electronic devices and medical equipment is a growing problem in healthcare. However, Gartner says that
mobile/wireless computing benefits outweigh the risks, most of which can be effectively managed. Check out this article's recent discussion posts. |
