Burlington, Mass-based Bluesocket, Inc. announced yesterday at Gartner’s First Annual WLAN Summit that its products now offer expanded support for the IEEE 802.1x security standard that has been broadly supported by both hardware and software manufacturers as resolving many of the problems with WEP. WEP has proven to be vulnerable to attacks by hackers and could be a limiting factor regarding enterprise acceptance and uptake of WLANs using only that standard.
Bluesocket’s WG-1000 gateway product will enable multi-vendor networks to implement 802.1x authentication and enhanced data integrity capabilities. Windows XP, acess points, NIC cards, mobile apps, and authentication servers will all benefit from the gateway’s enhanced capabilities:
According to Gartner VP, Research Director and conference chair John Girard, “802.1x is the strategic direction for a standard to replace WEP. However, it is still evolving, and users working with vendor-specific implementations will face interoperability challenges.”
Bluesocket highlighted the fact that the WG-1000 is RF-standards-agnostic, and is compatible with future WLAN standards including 802.11a, 802.11g, and HiperLAN2.
The WG-1000 sits between an enterprise’s access point (base stations) and the rest of the network, acting as a secure gatetway between the wired and wireless components.
Matthew Peretz is Managing Editor of 802.11-Planet.com