Wifi Revolution

Xirrus, a leading provider of high performance, long range Wi-Fi products, has released a new tool and a white paper that explains solutions and compliance details for the PCI (Payment Card Industry) Data Security Standard for companies that use Wi-Fi and handle payment card information.

The PCI Data Security Standard was developed by major credit card companies to help those that process credit card transactions (or cardholder information) in order to secure cardholder information and protect it from unauthorized access, fraud and other security issues.

As there are many issues cropping up with the use of WEP encryption for WiFi while handling the payment card information, business are looking for solutions and the pressure is mounting on CTOs for the same.

The new tool from Xirrus provides a solution for this issue by automatically auditing the wireless network to ensure continued compliance to the PCI standard and automatically generating alerts on any non-complying elements.

Many companies have invested heavily in hardware that only supports WEP such as scanners and payment card terminals. These companies are looking to transition away from WEP encryption as it may soon no longer be a valid for PCI compliance.

The seriousness of compliance issue was noticed recently when TJ Maxx incurred costs and fines for using the legacy WEP encryption for wireless networking.

This huge cost is forcing their CIOs to look for a better system of encryption for wireless networking.

There are specific PCI requirements for securing Wi-Fi networks and the new white paper details these and additional wireless recommendations along with a checklist for ensuring a compliant wireless network.

In addition to the white papaer, Xirrus also released a new feature that automatically audits the wireless network to ensure continued compliance.

Xirrus also takes the help of third parties such as VeriSign (News - Alert) to ensure the worthiness of is products in a PCI compliant network. The latest WPA2 encryption requires strong authentication, firewalling and intrusion detection that goes beyond PCI requirements for a wireless network. It provides secure Wi-Fi networking to the retail, hospitality, and other commerce-oriented environments and removes complexity from deploying and managing a Wi-Fi network. The automatic assurance of PCI compliance is aimed at boosting the confidence of customers.

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P R Sai is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

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