WatchGuard^® Technologies launched its new Trusted Wireless Environment framework, a guiding resource businesses and solution providers can use to build Wi-Fi services that offer market-leading performance, scalable management and verified, comprehensive security capabilities.

This new initiative seeks to upset the status quo in the wireless market, which has prioritized performance over security for far too long. Organizations that build Trusted Wireless Environments can enjoy the performance and scalability they need to run their business, while at the same time ensuring protection against today?s most dangerous Wi-Fi attacks.

?Wi-Fi networks have always served as low-hanging fruit for cyber criminals looking to steal valuable information, primarily because vendors and businesses alike have made the mistake of looking at Wi-Fi security capabilities as an added benefit, rather than a primary feature,? said Ryan Orsi, director of product management at WatchGuard Technologies. ?We?re seeing a massive, industry-wide need to fundamentally reevaluate what we expect from Wi-Fi products, so we?re advocating that businesses of every size —and even competing vendors— examine our framework for what it takes to build and operate a Trusted Wireless Environment. WatchGuard?s cloud-based secure Wi-Fi products are truly unique in that they offer both industry-leading performance and unrivaled protection against every known category of Wi-Fi security threats, all delivered in a package that?s easily managed and highly scalable.?

Trusted Wireless Environments

WatchGuard?s Trusted Wireless Environment framework helps organizations develop complete Wi-Fi networks that are fast, easy to manage, and most importantly, secure.

Organizations today are faced with the inherent responsibility of establishing Trusted Wireless Environments that protect their employees, their customers, and their intellectual property from hackers who can easily exploit the weak or non-existent security of traditional Wi-Fi networks.

Some chose to tackle this effort in-house, however, many small to midsize businesses and organizations elect to outsource their IT, including their Wi-Fi, to a trusted partner, which puts the responsibility for protecting that organization on the VAR, MSP, or MSSP serving that client.

The three core pillars of a Trusted Wireless Environment include:

1. Market-Leading Performance: Businesses should never be forced to compromise security in favor of achieving the level of Wi-Fi performance required to support user connections and client density within their wireless environments.
2. Scalable Management: With easy set-up and management, businesses should be able control their entire wireless network —regardless of size or complexity— from a single interface and execute key processes to safeguard the environment and its users.
3. Verified Comprehensive Security: Many vendors operate under a haze of ambiguity when it comes to advertising security capabilities offered by their Wi-Fi solutions. Businesses need proof that their security solution can provide automatic protection from the six known Wi-Fi threat categories, allow legitimate external access points (APs) to operate in the same airspace, and restrict users from connecting to unsanctioned Wi-Fi access points.

Assessing the Security Capabilities of Top Wi-fi Solutions

According to new research from Miercom, a leading, independent product test center, WatchGuard?s cloud-managed secure Wi-Fi solution is the only product on the market capable of automatically detecting and preventing every type of Wi-Fi security threat.

These findings came from a new independent security assessment that examined four top Wi-Fi products for their ability to effectively prevent the six major Wi-Fi security threats: rogue access points, rogue clients, neighboring APs, ad-hoc networks, evil twin APs (those with spoofed SSIDs),