News

Colubris adds Copious Security

Colubris Networks is adding a variety of security measures to its enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) products. Some products will meet stringent government security certifications.

by Eric Griffith Wi-Fi Planet Managing Editor [November 5, 2002]

Colubris Networks of Laval, Quebec has announced new security features across its lines of products.

The entire line of Colubris enterprise access points will be gaining "rogue detection" capabilities. The Colubris products will switch to this mode at regular intervals and report on any unauthorized WLAN products that appear on the network by looking for unusual radio frequency traffic in the area. The Rogue Detector ability is part of the Colubris' "Secure-Edge Architecture."

Colubris is also announcing full support for the newly announced Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which the Wi-Fi Alliance has named as the official upgrade from the notoriously easy to defeat wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption that's currently part of the 802.11 specification. WPA, a subset of the 802.11i security specification, will be supported in Colubris products when it's made final in early 2003. At the same time, Colubris will add support for IP Security (IPSec) virtual private networks for protecting connections at the IP layer.

The company also is gearing up for some government customers. Its CN1050 Enterprise Office and CN1054 Branch Office products are heading into testing for certification for its FIPS 140-2 support.

FIPS is short for Federal Information Processing Standards. The 140 cryptographic standard was created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE). The standard has four levels of security—Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4—that increase in quality as they go up. FIPS 140-1, the first level, only supports DES and 3DES encryption, for example.

Colubris has the products in for FIPS testing with Electronic Warfare Associates and will submit the complete results to NIST and the CSE in January for formal certification.

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