Facing the challenge of wireless security

Increasingly, companies and individuals are using wireless technology for important communications they want to keep private, such as mobile e-commerce transactions, email, and corporate data transmissions. At the same time, as wireless platforms mature, grow in popularity, and store valuable information, hackers are stepping up their attacks on these new targets. This is a particular problem because wireless devices, including smart cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) with Internet access, were not originally designed with security as a top priority. Now, however, wireless security is becoming an important area of product research and development. As in the wired world, wireless security boils down to protecting information and preventing unauthorized system access. However, it is challenging to implement security in small-footprint devices with low processing power and small memory capacities and that use unreliable, low bandwidth wireless networks. Vendors and others have developed several security approaches for the various wireless technologies, although each of these early efforts has some shortcomings. Security researchers are thus busy developing new technologies and fixing holes in existing ones. The paper discusses wireless security technology and its shortcomings.