Name: Nicholas Miller
Position: CEO
Company: Airpatrol Corporation
Previous positions: Prior to AirPatrol, Nick was President and CEO of Cirond Corporation. Before that,  he founded and served as President and CEO of DataLink Systems Corporation (now Semotus Solutions Inc.), a San Jose based publicly traded company in the wireless information services sector. He also served as a Director of Ezenet Technologies (acquired by Cognicase) and Workfire Technologies (acquired by Packeteer Inc.).

In the following interview, Nicholas Miller, CEO - Airpatrol discusses 1:1 with Rake Narang, Editor-in-chief of Info Security Products Guide, the new era of mobility and wireless devices and how we can still stay secured.

Rake Narang, Chief Editor - Info Security Products Guide:What are the main reasons behind the increase in wireless enabled threats? Are organizations that only have wired networks at a lesser risk?  

Nicholas Miller, CEO - Airpatrol: With over 300 million wireless laptops in use and over 100 million more being sold each year, businesses are at risk, whether or not they have a wireless network. Through attack schemes known as Evil Twin and Wi-Phishing, hackers can exploit the automatic connectivity features standard in today’s popular Windows® wireless clients to gain access to information on laptops and breach corporate networks. 

Today millions of employees leave the workplace with volumes of corporate data stored on laptops or other wireless devices. When employees connect to insecure networks—from home, at the coffee house, in the airport—or fail to use wireless security best practices, it can place sensitive data at risk.

Complicating the security challenge is the reality that a simple connection of a wireless notebook to a wired network can open up an entry point into a company’s wired network, accessible by anyone with a wireless device (on a different floor, in the parking lot, or across the street), just as if they were seated at a desk in the office. Traditional wired network intrusion detection or intrusion prevention systems (IDS/IPS) are not capable of detecting this type of intrusion because it happens behind the firewall.

 "Threats to an organization’s network stemming from the growing number of wireless devices connecting to it can rapidly weaken the entire information infrastructure. Airpatrol is uniquely positioned to provide wireless threat management solutions so that organizations can continue to provide wireless access without sacrificing on security and performance."

Rake Narang, Editor-in-chief, Info Security Products Guide

Rake Narang:Will the wireless enabled threats act as a key deterrent for more organizations to expand their corporate networks as wireless mobility becomes an important necessity? Is there a viable solution available for organizations to protect their digital resources against wireless intrusion?

Nicholas Miller: Ultimately, wireless-enabled threats will not be a viable deterrent that keeps companies from going mobile. The issue has really been an “ROI of wireless security” issue. To date many enterprises have not been able to justify the deployment of wireless security technologies because historically deploying a comprehensive solution meant using multiple products that were expensive and very difficult to manage.

New comprehensive wireless threat management security offerings, spearheaded by AirPatrol, are for the first time enabling wired organizations to proactively protect networks and data against wireless-enabled attacks—in an affordable and efficient manner. These new technologies enable enterprises to integrate wireless security into existing hardwired networks and cut deployment in half or better.  Once IT departments gain confidence in their ability to defend hardwired systems against wireless-enabled attacks, they begin to see the real value of wireless technologies. IT departments can demonstrate real ROI by not only securing the enterprise against wireless threats, but also enabling business mobility and reducing the costs of implementing new networks—adding both top and bottom-line benefits.

Rake Narang: How has wireless threat management evolved over the years and what makes Airpatrol a key player in this segment?

Nicholas Miller: Historically, implementing a comprehensive wireless security solution meant deploying technologies from multiple vendors. The net result was a system that was costly to deploy, cumbersome to manage, and promised only partial protection.

The backbone of these legacy solutions was a wireless sensor network capable of detecting rogue wireless devices with limited success. The sensors cost between $600 and $1,000 each and required a dedicated network connection, which added an additional $600-$800 per sensor in cabling and switch port costs, bringing the average deployment to about $6,000 per 10,000 square feet.

In addition, threat mitigation strategies depended on resource intensive analysis of packet-level data—delaying response times; use of automated DoS attacks to stop intrusions—often producing unintended results such as the take down of a legitimate neighboring wireless network; and the manual process of pushing policies to client devices—which were often circumvented by employees dissatisfied with the slowed performance and inflexible connectivity policies.

AirPatrol’s Wireless Threat Management suite, featuring WiVision™ products, is the first to deliver an end-to-end, corporate-wide approach to wireless threat detection and mitigation that addresses the IT security, manageability and cost requirements of organizations worldwide. AirPatrol’s Wireless Threat Management solution greatly simplifies and dramatically lowers the cost-of-deployment of wireless technology by enabling wireless networking technology to be integrated into existing network infrastructure, rather than being deployed as a parallel network.  The average AirPatrol deployment equals $2,000 per 10,000 square feet which is a dramatic reduction in cost vs. traditional deployment scenarios. For the first time, wireless technology can be deployed as it was originally envisioned, by simply adding low-cost WPA-capable access points to the edge of an existing wired network.

All About Airpatol Corporation
Head Office Address: 8525 Baxter Place, Suite 203 Burnaby BC Canada V5A 4V7
Founded in: 2005
CEO: Nicholas Miller
Public or Private: Private
Investors: Privately Funded
Products: WiVision Enterprise Platform, WiVision Sensor Technology, WiVision Policy Manager, WiVision Client, WiVision Mobile Scan