Commentary: Targeting rogue hot spots

While security is an issue when it comes to Wi-Fi, it's not adding wireless access points to your infrastructure that's the real risk, said FedEx CIO Rob Carter, but rather rogue equipment impatient employees install.

Speaking on a Wi-Fi panel at Comdex in Las Vegas, Carter said he has few security concerns about the 6,000 access points the company itself has installed worldwide. What keeps him up at night is all the routers employees have bought at Best Buy and Fry's Electronics while waiting for the company to go wireless.

"Those are the ones you have to watch out for," Carter said. "We have to sniff those out and eradicate them."

Rajeev Chand, the Rutberg & Co. financial analyst who moderated the panel, boasted that he was one of the offenders. "I personally have installed a rogue access point in my network," he said.

Vince Spinelli, Cisco's director of operations for U.S. mobile carriers, had another take. The real problem right now, he said, is that it's too difficult to use security features such as impossibly long passwords.

While the networks themselves can be made pretty secure, Spinelli said, he cautioned that no networks--wired or Wi-Fi--can ever be completely secure. "There's no such thing as 100 percent bulletproof security when it comes to networking."

Not exactly the words one wants to hear from the world's largest maker of networking gear.