image from tinker-tailor-solider-spy.com

While networks have many advantages – the key one being connected systems and data – their key problem is security. The only way to be absolutely certain that data transmitted on a network is secure is secure is to encrypt it – and this is an issue of much debate in recent times.

While a wired network may offer some physical security – hackers have to get one the premises effectively – wireless networks have always had an issue in that they can be “scanned”. Many of use have probably used unsecure/free public wifi on a bus or in a coffee shop. This is fine once you are not sending confidential information.

And I am sure many of us have used the sometimes costly wifi in hotels. We may think as we pay, it is more secure. A recent blog post on the Economist  suggests otherwise. The post notes a report by Kaspersky Labs, which found that specific persons staying in hotels were targeted and their hotel wifi connection snooped. This was down to some clever malicious software, but the lesson to be learned for a business might be – assume all wifi you do not control is unsecure.