With recent technological advances, wireless devices are well positioned to add value as corporate productivity tools. Investments in this area have the potential to provide widespread improvements in mobile worker efficiency, business activity monitoring, exception handling, and organizational throughput. While the potential gains are impressive, many organizations are waiting to deploy this technology due to security concerns. Companies which wait may indeed feel secure. . . .
With recent technological advances, wireless devices are well positioned to add value as corporate productivity tools. Investments in this area have the potential to provide widespread improvements in mobile worker efficiency, business activity monitoring, exception handling, and organizational throughput. While the potential gains are impressive, many organizations are waiting to deploy this technology due to security concerns. Companies which wait may indeed feel secure. But companies which provide their workers with real time access to business critical information while addressing security concerns will have a significant competitive advantage.

In this article, we will explore the security issues involved in wireless deployments, and appropriate steps for information technologists to take when establishing their wireless infrastructure, so that they can take advantage of wireless technologies while minimizing business risk.

Security Overview

A wireless security model should address potential threats not just in the corporate environment, but also in the personal and public environments where wireless devices are typically used. As a basic starting point, you will want to evaluate the level of exposure available through your devices, networks, data, and accompanying information systems.

According to the Gartner Group, over 250,000 PDAs were lost in 2001. These losses occurred in highly public places - airports, restaurants, offices, taxi cabs, etc. Given the ease with which these devices are lost it is imperative that your security model include a means for securing and removing information stored on the device.

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