SANTA CLARA — There are a lot of enterprise-class products that will tell
a system administrator when their Wi-Fi network has an intruder. Newbury
Networks knows this, but the company’s new WiFi Watchdog will pinpoint an
intruder’s location within three meters.
WiFi Watchdog is the latest layered application that works with Newbury Network’s
Locale Sever 3.0, a software platform for creating a Location-Enabled Network
or LEN. Other layered add-ons for Locale Server include a Hotspot Manager and
the Digital Concierge-Docent for pushing Web-based content to locations (such
as in museum tours).
"[Secruity] is what resonates with enterprises," says Michael Maggio,
president and CEO of Newbury Networks. Competitors like "Reefedge or Bluesocket,
there’s things they solve, but people don’t know where the problems are. Is
it someone in the parking lot? We can tell them where problems are so they can
go after it."
WiFi Watchdog adds not only intrusion detection but also includes live monitoring
to keep an eye on all users and devices (as well as denying access to unknown
users), a rogue access point detection, and path and pattern reports so administrators
can see where on the wireless LAN the most problems occur.
Maggio says deploying a LEN around your current WLAN is simple — either surround
your current setup with Locale Points (access points setup to work with the
Locale Sever), or convert your existing access points.
"We’ve taken a standard access point, under $100 access points from Linksys,
D-Link, others and we put our firmware on it to put it into monitor mode,"
says Maggio. The goal is to keep the deployment cheap on the hardware side.
Minimum price for Locale Server 3.0 with WiFi Watchdog is $20,000 but can range
much higher depending on the deployment area. It will ship to customers in January
2003.
Newbury Networks will be doing live demonstrations of the WiFi Watchdog
this week at the 802.11 Planet Conference & Expo at the
Santa Clara Convention Center on Wednesday and Thursday, December 4 and 5, 2002.
