Posted: 05th Oct, 2005 By: MarkJ
Wi-Fi operator iBahn has completed work to better secure its public UK wireless Internet access hotspots with WPA (802.11i) encryption:
IBahn claims it is the first wireless operator to install WPA at all its wireless hot spots, although T-Mobile announced last year that it was making a similar move. The company hopes that adopting WPA will boost its appeal with business users.
In a demonstration at a London hotel, iBahn showed that without encryption it is simple for someone using packet-sniffing techniques to obtain information, such as usernames and passwords, that are being transmitted over the network.
Graeme Powell, iBahn's managing director, explained that upgrading to WPA was a time-consuming and expensive operation. iBahn's older access points did not support two SSIDs one for WPA, and one for other connections so these had to be replaced.Security is known to be one of the key concerns surrounding use of public Wi-Fi hotspots, making this move an important one. Sadly some operators still use the older and more vulnerable methods. More @
ZDNet.