AirWave and AirMagnet:
Comprehensive Security for Your Wireless Network
A Central Nervous System to Protect Your Wireless LAN
The central nervous system provides the human body’s most powerful and ingenious defense mechanism. At the first sign
of danger, an intricate network of nerves alert the brain, which instantly responds and takes appropriate action to protect
you. To defend your organization’s wireless network, you need a comparable system that will:
X Monitor the airspace and the network infrastructure to instantly detect intruders and security breaches
X Deliver all monitoring data to a centralized “brain” to diagnose problems
X Implement corrective actions immediately and automatically
Together, AirMagnet and AirWave Wireless deliver an integrated security and management solution to protect your Wi-Fi
network from the most significant security threats.
DETECT
The AirMagnet Distributed™ intrusion detection
system uses a network of dedicated RF sensors to
scan the airspace in your facilities on a 24x7 basis.
These sensors instantaneously detect rogue access
points, unauthorized users, misconfigured access
points, denial of service attacks, dictionary attacks,
and more. The AirMagnet Management Server
continually analyzes data from all these distributed
sensors to detect violations of security policy.
AirWave & AirMagnet: Translating
Information into Action
The AirMagnet Distributed system and the AirWave
Management Platform software are certified for
interoperability and communicate directly with one another
as well as with third party management systems (such as
HP OpenView). When the AirMagnet system detects a
security breach, AMP allows you to respond immediately
to protect your network. Together, the solutions even
enable you to take steps to prevent future occurrences of
the same security breach.
PROTECT
Typical AMP & AirMagnet Customer Installation Scenario
The AirWave Management Platform™ (AMP)
wireless network management software protects
your network by enabling you to define your security
and network policies centrally. AMP automatically
configures your wireless access points to ensure
that those policies are implemented uniformly. AMP
automatically audits and repairs access point
configurations to eliminate the possibility that a
misconfigured AP will open your network to attack.
The AirMagnet Distributed system monitors
the airwaves and alerts IT when security
problems are detected. AMP enables network
administrators to take immediate corrective
action to eliminate the threat.
Seamless Integration to Defend Your WLAN from Common Threats
Individually, AirMagnet Distributed and the AirWave Management Platform play critical roles in ensuring the security of
your wireless network. When used in an integrated fashion, the solutions defend and protect your network from some of
the most devastating security breaches:
Detect
Denial of Service Attack
Rogue AP
AirMagnet Distributed immediately
identifies a DoS attack and
automatically issues a detailed realtime intrusion alert.
Network administrators use the AirWave
Management Platform to remotely shut
down the network segment under attack.
AirMagnet Distributed automatically
detects and locates an unknown
“rogue” AP using the access control
list (ACL) provided by AMP.
AirWave Management Client™ helps
users identify and avoid connecting to
unknown rogue access points.
Visitor attempts to connect without
required authorization and
encryption. AirMagnet Distributed
© 2004, AirWave Wireless Inc. and AirMagnet Inc. All rights reserved.
logs the violation and signals AMP.
User Authentication
Policy Violation
Protect
AirWave Management Platform audits
and verifies that no security settings have
been compromised or changed without
authorization.
Competitive Differentiation: Unparalleled Security for the Enterprise
The combination of the AirMagnet Distributed system and the AirWave Management Platform delivers unparalleled
security and manageability for Wi-Fi networks. Unlike other proprietary solutions from individual hardware vendors,
AirWave and AirMagnet deliver:
Automated AP
Configuration
A misconfigured AP is one of the most common and serious violations of WLAN security.
The AirWave Management Platform’s centralized AP auto-configuration helps you
guarantee that attackers will not access your network through an improperly configured
access point. Whenever an AP’s configuration comes out of compliance with your
policies, either through human error or malicious action, AMP automatically and remotely
restores the correct settings.
Comprehensive RF
Monitoring
AirMagnet’s smart sensors are specifically designed to monitor all the 802.11b/g and
802.11a frequencies simultaneously, ensuring that AirMagnet Distributed will capture all
wireless traffic and detect all rogue Wi-Fi devices. AirMagnet’s sensors are much more
powerful than competitors’ devices, typically requiring just one sensor for every 6
wireless access points.
Superior Intrusion
Detection
(100+ separate alerts)
While some hardware vendors offer rudimentary intrusion detection capabilities, only the
AirMagnet Distributed system generates more than 100 different security-related alarms,
detecting a much wider range of attacks. When the security of your network is at stake,
solutions that detect ‘most’ attacks simply are not good enough.
No Hardware
Dependence
Security is too important for your organization to be dependent on proprietary, vendorspecific hardware solutions. True security requires that you be able to define and enforce
your policies on any hardware, anywhere on the network. Both the AirWave Management
Platform™ and AirMagnet Distributed system are vendor-neutral solutions that give you
the freedom to select Wi-Fi access points from most leading hardware vendors like
Cisco, Symbol, Proxim, HP ProCurve, Colubris, 3Com, Avaya, Enterasys, and many
others.
Enterprise Scalability
Your WLAN cannot be secure if you can enforce your security policies in just one
location or on one segment of your network. True security requires that you be able to
enforce policies efficiently across your entire network and monitor all locations
simultaneously. Both AMP and the AirMagnet Distributed system are built upon flexible,
distributed architectures to enable you to monitor and manage WLANs encompassing
thousands of locations worldwide from comprehensive management consoles rather than
treating individual facilities and geographic locations as independent “islands” to be
managed and secured independently.
Cost-Effective
A WLAN security solution may look good on paper, but does not offer any real-world
security if it is too costly to install and administer. The AirWave and AirMagnet solutions
leverage your existing network infrastructure and do not require you to replace switches,
routers or other hardware. The solutions are specifically designed to be easy to install
and use, eliminating costly training and opportunities for error.
1700 South El Camino Real
Suite 500
San Mateo, CA 94402
894 Ross Drive
Suite 200
Sunnyvale, CA 94081
Phone: (650) 286-6100
Fax: (650) 286-6101
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (408) 400-0200
Fax: (408) 744-1250
Email: [email protected]
© 2004, AirWave Wireless Inc. and AirMagnet Inc. All rights reserved.