User's Manual

10/10/03 Rogue Access Points
90-100584-004 Airespace Product Guide 60
About Rogue Access PointsRogue Access Point s
Because they are inexpensive an readily available, clients are plugging unauthorized rogue access
points (rogue APs) into existing LANs and building ad hoc wireless networks without IT department
knowledge or consent.
These rogues can be a serious breach of network security, because they can be plugged into a network
port behind the corporate firewall. Because clients generally do not enable any security settings on the
rogues, it is easy for unauthorized clients to use the access point to intercept network traffic and hijack
client sessions. Even more alarming, wireless clients and war chalkers frequently publish unsecure
access point locations, increasing the odds of having the enterprise security breached.
Rather than using a person with a scanner to manually detect rogue APs, the Airespace System auto-
matically collects information on rogue access points detected by its managed Airespace Access Points
and Third-Party Access Points
, by MAC and IP address, and allows the system operator to tag and
monitor them as described in the Detecting and Monitoring Rogue Access Points section. Finally, the
AireOS can be used to discourage rogue AP clients by sending them deauthenticate and disassociate
messages from one to four Airespace APs. Because this real-time detection is automated, it saves labor
costs used for detecting and monitoring rogue APs while improving LAN security.
See also Rogue AP Tagging and Containment
.