Assessment of the true risks to the protection of confidential information in the wireless home and office environment

Abstract

The ubiquity of wireless communications, in the home and office environment, introduces information security risks specific to WLANs and handheld devices. It is crucial to continuously monitor their evolution but every threat must be examined in terms of potential impact and likelihood. Only when both conditions are present, it does need to be mitigated. This paper shows how the problem can be addressed in a methodological manner. By conducting a proper risk assessment we can identify the threats, to the security of wireless communications, that are real and the ones that are inoffensive. Examples related to the protection of confidential information, in the wireless home and office environment, are used to illustrate the point.