Yet another wireless technology looks set to put in an appearance soon, in the form of Wireless USB (WUSB). Based on WiMedia’s Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio technology, WUSB eliminates wires when linking PCs to peripheral devices such as printers and external storage devices ­ similar to Bluetooth but at 480Mbit/s, much faster.

Good news you might think, especially for home users fed up with all those trailing wires. WUSB products are already available from vendors such as Belkin and D-Link in the US, with European versions expected later this year. However, it could cause headaches for firms struggling to manage the current crop of wireless solutions, not to mention USB and other peripherals in general.

On the face of it WUSB is very much a consumer solution that ought to have very little impact on the business world. After all, it’s a short-range technology (up to 10 metres) that uses different radio frequencies (3-10GHz) from the 2.4GHz used by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so interference shouldn’t be an issue. Use of 128bit AES encryption means that, in terms of data interception at least, security is covered.

But then consumer technologies have a habit of spreading. All the more so given the way vendors quickly start to build support for new technologies into laptop and desktop PCs, as has already begun with WUSB. Moreover, our ongoing love affair with all things wireless means it won’t be long before WUSB becomes commonplace in the office, where there’s a lot more to worry about.

Think about it. Armed with nothing more than a USB flash memory stick it’s already possible to drive a steam roller through carefully crafted network security defences. Data copied onto a PC this way, for example, often won’t be screened for viruses, while there’s, typically, nothing to prevent files being copied in the other direction and removed altogether. CD/DVD drives are equally a threat, along with external hard disks and storage devices in general.

Locking down and controlling the use of such devices is hard enough when they have to be physically plugged into a PC in order to work. It becomes hugely more difficult when all you have to do is walk up with the device in your pocket.

I don’t want to be alarmist, nor argue against the introduction of WUSB products which, otherwise, really will be a good thing for consumers and business users alike. However, it is important that network managers and others responsible for security understand and think about the implications of their use, not just the benefits.