Wireless LAN scan finds big security holes in NYC retailers’ wireless nets

[Steve]

There's bad news for some retailers at this week’s National Retail Federation trade show in New York City, where WLAN security company AirDefense disclosed the findings of its four-day scan of local retailers’ wireless nets.Security for retail wireless nets is still bad, though improving, AirDefense found after scanning nearly 800 stores in the five NYC boroughs between Thursday, Jan. 10 and Sunday, Jan. 13.About one third of the stores had no security at all, not even the minimal encryption provided by the flawed Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol. Another third had weak encryption, such as WEP or the pre-shared key mode of the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA PSK) specification, which was originally intended as basic security for home or SOHO WLANs.

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