Tuesday, 16 March 2004 04:29 EST

Atlanta - February 16, 2004 - With a broader market embracing the benefits of wireless LAN deployments, and a growing awareness of the benefits of a layered approach to addressing the security and management issues, AirDefense, the market leader in enabling risk-free WLAN deployments, today announced it has passed a major milestone with over 200 Enterprise networks deployed, and the release of 4.0 software version to the marketplace.

"Enterprises are looking for a purpose built security and management solution that will allow them to control the uncontrollable medium of air, and thereby harness all the productivity benefits of WLANs, without the potential risks to performance, operations, security or policy that could be introduced with WLANs", said Anil Khatod, CEO of AirDefense. "Today, over 200 customers ranging from the Federal, Defense, Security, Healthcare and other F500 segments rely on AirDefense to protect their investments, and monitor thousands of WLANs around the world. With the enhanced capabilities of 4.0, we are finding customers now deploying the AirDefense system prior to their WLAN infrastructure in order to clean up the air space, then define the right deployment policies."

The AirDefense 4.0 security and monitoring system is built around patent-pending technology that incorporates distributed smart sensors and a server appliance. The remote sensors continuously monitor all wireless LAN activities and communicate with the server appliance, which then correlates and analyzes the data to provide scalable, centralized management of security, policy enforcement and overall operational support of the wireless LAN.

The AirDefense 4.0 system continues to provide the most comprehensive view of an organization's wireless activities including live, real-time views of all discovered devices, and rogue WLAN detection and analysis, in addition to ensuring that WLAN policies are being enforced across all stations and APs. Release 4.0 introduces over 100 new enhancements and features, primarily developed under the guidance of AirDefense's broad customer group. The experience developed in working with these customers ensures that AirDefense delivers functionality which stays at the forefront of customer requirements.

"As more WLAN devices make their way into the enterprise, monitoring the WLAN devices becomes more important than simple detection," said Pete Lindstrom, Director, Spire Security. "Organizations that deploy a purpose-built monitoring system also quickly realize that along with monitoring security it is extremely valuable for operations to perform activities like tracking assets and managing relationships and behaviors among the devices."

The AirDefense 4.0 system enhances the robust correlation and reporting engine that has been at the heart of allowing enterprises to gain visibility and control over their air space. In addition to LiveView, the new release introduces support for VLANs, VPNs and additional security enhancements. Reporting upgrades include simple point and click compliance checks for regulatory purposes such as HIPAA and GLBA.


With the new AirDefense 4.0 system, product enhancements include:

Real-time, 24x7 LiveView of all stations and APs, with summary, detail or decode capability
Policy support which can be applied to VLANs, and also to VPNs
Notification upgrades providing the ability to direct notification by geographic location, or by sensor locale and include the ability to enable/disable each alarm
Further addition of multiple attack/threat detection signatures in addition to Soft AP alarms for laptop based threats
Enhanced reporting which now provides comprehensive trending for WLAN congestion and utilization, in addition to providing flexible filters to sort by device, group, time, and date
Centralized management of software updates for enterprise-wide upgrades and enhancements
Enhanced frame capture with flexible filtering


AirDefense continues to lead the market for real-time wireless LAN monitoring and operational support by rising to meet the needs of our customers," said Anil Khatod. "We have been at the forefront of this market space since day one and we will continue to innovate, secure and support the needs of our growing list of customers. "


About AirDefense, Inc.
AirDefense is a thought leader and innovator of wireless LAN security and operational support solutions. Founded in 2001, AirDefense pioneered the concept of 24x7 monitoring of the airwaves and now provides the most advanced solutions for rogue WLAN detection, policy enforcement, intrusion protection and monitoring the health of wireless LANs. As a key element of wireless LAN security, AirDefense complements wireless VPNs, encryption and authentication. Based on a secure appliance and remote sensors, AirDefense solutions scale to support single offices, corporate campuses or hundreds of locations. Blue chip companies and government agencies rely upon AirDefense solutions to secure and manage wireless LANs around the globe. For more information, go to www.airdefense.net or call .

Media Contacts:

Ashish Mistry
AirDefense, Inc.
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