AirDefense and eSeSIX Partner to Track Wireless Vulnerabilities at CeBIT; Results Show Increases in Level of Sophisticated Threats & Attacks to Wireless Networks.

HANNOVER, Germany -- AirDefense, the leader in anywhere, anytime wireless monitoring, and Germany-based distributor eSeSIX today announced the results of their joint study of wireless LAN (WLAN) activity at CeBIT, March 10-16. Not surprisingly, the companies report that the conference attracted a wave of increasingly more complex wireless threats and attacks.

This increase in complexity was first discovered by AirDefense at the 2005 RSA Conference, where AirDefense concluded that intruders continue to become more targeted and complex in their attacks. Similar to RSA, the threats and attacks seen at CeBIT were indicative of intruders focusing on targeting individual devices. At CeBIT, once an intruder located a vulnerable device, a series of attacks would be performed in order to become the device. The masquerading process included launching a denial of service attack to knock a device off the network, and then spoofing the MAC address of the device to then connect to the network as the spoofed device.

"Hackers at this year's CeBIT came with a purpose in mind," said Richard Rushing, chief security officer of AirDefense. "People were more focused on masquerading as a legitimate device rather than trying to capture information or redirect attendees."

Rushing also noted the masquerading attempts were likely to prove a point such as taking down an exhibitor's demonstration or a contest to disconnect the most attendees. Rushing also commented that either way the hackers exhibited malicious intent against other devices.

The recent trend in soft-APs, or laptops acting as access points, was diminished at CeBIT. However, AirDefense noted a T-Mobile phone acting as a soft-AP, a first of its kind and a highly sophisticated tool. The new T-Mobile sighting demonstrates that soft-APs are moving beyond laptops to other wireless devices. AirDefense anticipates soft-APs migrating to pocket PCs and PDAs in a matter of months.

Throughout CeBIT, AirDefense and eSeSIX compiled additional results, including:

--Many exhibitors named their access points the same name as their company. This naming convention makes it easy for an intruder doing reconnaissance to track precisely what the company is doing, including checking email, using the internet, transferring data or streaming video.

--Companies that did not use WEP or some strong form of encryption were leaking traffic into the air - yet another way for intruders to gain immediate knowledge of the company and use the information in a malicious way.

"Exhibitors who leave their wireless networks easily discoverable at these shows need to be made aware of the ease with which an intruder can access their network and cause damage," said Rushing. "Sharing information such as this should alert companies to the need to protect their wireless and wired side data."

eSeSIX, AirDefense's exclusive distributor for Germany, Austria and Switzerland participated in the conference research as well.

"WLAN and security continue to be a central aspect of the CeBIT show," said Engelbert Tretter, managing director of eSeSIX. "During the show we noted Wi-Fi phishing and protection of mobile networks and terminal devices have become increasingly more important. We are pleased we can now offer AirDefense's best-of-breed solutions to our partners to assist customers in protecting their wireless networks."

About AirDefense, Inc.

AirDefense is the market leader in anywhere, anytime wireless security and monitoring. The company's products provide the most advanced solutions for rogue wireless detection, policy enforcement and intrusion prevention both inside and outside an organization's four walls. AirDefense's enterprise-class products scale to support everything from single offices to organizations with hundreds of locations. Founded in 2001, AirDefense is based in Alpharetta, GA and services hundreds of government agencies and blue chip corporations. For more information, please visit http://www.airdefense.net or call 770.663.8115.

About eSeSIX

eSeSIX Computer GmbH is a distributor of high quality, innovative network solutions for companies. The company, based near Munich, Germany was formed in 1992 and is privately owned.

As a distributor eSeSIX sees itself as a solutions supplier and service provider for the innovative IT specialist trade. The product range covers products that provide future compatibility reflecting the needs of modern corporate networks to suit all requirements and all company sizes.