Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Managers fret about security for wireless units

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 02:07:32 -0400

10/13/03; Vol. 22 No. 30

Managers fret about security for wireless units

By Richard W. Walker
GCN Staff

When the subject is wireless technologies,
security vulnerabilities are what first spring to
the minds of government IT managers.

In a GCN telephone survey, 69 percent of
managers cited security concerns as the
biggest stumbling block to incorporating
wireless technologies into their agency’s IT
environments.

“We can’t use any current wireless
technologies because of the security issues,”
said an Army security specialist in
Springfield, Va.

“It’s not hard to compromise wireless
networks,” said a Coast Guard IT specialist in
Milwaukee.

“Some security systems [for wireless
systems] are not mature enough to be
implemented,” said a Federal Retirement
Board computer technician in Washington.

But not all of the managers we polled shared
those concerns. “I think the security issue is
overblown,” said a systems manager at
Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.

“Some [wireless] protocols are very secure,”
noted an Agriculture Department computer
specialist in Stevens Point, Wis.

Others found a middle ground.

“We are comfortable [with the current level of
wireless security], but security is still
something that has be dealt with,” said a
Census Bureau IT specialist in Washington,
adding that his organization plans to
implement wireless access to the network for
remote users in the next couple of years.

“I am comfortable, but we cannot be stagnant
when it comes to security,” said a Veterans
Affairs Department IT specialist in
Philadelphia.

For 38 percent of the managers we talked
with, lack of funds for wireless projects was a
difficulty, and another 8 percent said
deploying wireless infrastructures was just
too expensive. Ten percent said getting senior
management to buy in to wireless systems
was a problem, while 16 percent said there
was simply no urgency to add wireless
systems.

A few offered up other barriers.

Interference from other devices is a concern,
said an Air Force network manager at
Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash.

A Commerce Department systems
administrator in Newport, Ore., said the lack
of qualified personnel to oversee wireless
systems at his office was a major problem.

Despite the current liabilities, three-quarters
of survey participants said wireless would be
more important to enterprise IT environments
in the future.

Nonetheless, only 21 percent of current
nonusers (58 percent of managers in the
survey sample) reported plans to incorporate
wireless into their environments

http://www.gcn.com/22_30/mobile-wireless/23794-1.html

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