Office visitors seen as Wi-Fi risk

Thirty five percent of enterprise IT staff see guest Wi-Fi access as an unacceptable security risk

Many companies are reluctant to provide wireless access to visitors because they fear they will be held liable for the activity of non-employees using their networks, according to new research from Wi-Fi network operator The Cloud.

The study revealed that 35 percent of the 300 enterprise IT staff questioned saw guest Wi-Fi access as an unacceptable security risk. A quarter said they were worried about legal liability issues around acting as a service provider, while 23 percent said that guest access provision generates additional workload for the IT department.

But Mark Main, a senior analyst at research firm Ovum, said that Wi-Fi networks operating in the licence-free 2.4GHz waveband are unlikely to breach Ofcom rules on service provision. He added that any misuse of the network would just become a civil issue between the two companies involved.

“It is surely no different to a third party coming on to your premises and stealing something or harassing an employee,” Main argued. “Anyone operating a corporate intranet will hopefully have safeguards in place to block their own employees from accessing undesirable content and monitor their usage, and these should extend to third-party access.”

Mark Simon, managing director of The Cloud’s enterprise Wi-Fi division, argued that IT departments lacking the resources to carry out wireless monitoring and control should consider outsourcing the work.