Retailers need to get more security savvy

If the annual Motorola AirDefense Retail Shopping Wireless Security Survey is to be believed, retailers are still not up to speed with how to protect their core assets.

The mobile giant used its AirDefense technology to scan the airwaves at major shopping centres for the presence of wireless networks, and to evaluate which - if any - wireless data security practices were currently in use.

Over 4,000 retailers were evaluated in some of the busiest shopping cities in the world, according to Motorola, and the bad news is that 44 percent of the wireless devices used by them - including laptops, mobile computers and barcode scanners - could be compromised.

Now, this is a pretty poor show, but some progress is being made; last year the figure was 85 per cent.

But most pressing for all those retailers surveyed, and all the rest out there, will be compliance to the new version of industry standard the PCI DSS, 1.2, which prohibits use of the now-debunked WEP encryption protocol for wireless data encryption.

According to the Motorola research, 32 per cent of access points surveyed were unencrypted, compared to 26 per cent last year, and a further 25 per cent were still using WEP.

Given the hefty fines and press attention now being focused on firms found to have lost customer data, shoring up this weak point should become a priority for vendors