Meraki Adds Intrusion Detection and Prevention To WiFi Acces Points

Meraki, a provider of networking and security solutions, today announced that it has added wireless intrusion detection and prevention technology to its MR-series line of wireless access points.

The added layer of defense comes from what the company calls ”Air Marshal”, technology embedded into the access points that enables them to detect a wide variety of threats, including rogue access points, SSID spoofing, packet floods, and malicious broadcasts. The company says insecure wireless activity is classified with a heuristics-based engine, and threats like rogue access points can be automatically neutralized, while attack signatures are continuously updated from the cloud in order to ensure customers are able to defend against new threats.

“Air Marshal was built for the largest, most security-conscious environments,” the company said in a statement, adding that while it is designed for the security and scalability needs of large enterprises, it is easy to use and cost effective for networks of any size.

“With WiFi becoming the default access layer in enterprises, security is at the forefront of our customers’ minds,” said AJ Goldman, Chief Evangelist at Meraki. “With Air Marshal, we’re pleased to offer high-grade intrusion detection and prevention without the cost and complexity of traditional solutions.”

In addition to Air Marshall, Meraki added number of other enhancements to its wireless access points, including improved ultra-fast roaming and inter-subnet (layer 3) mobility, high-density video streaming optimizations, and new authentication methods including SMS-based splash page sign-on.

The upgrades are compatible with all Meraki MR-series wireless access points, and is available for free for all Meraki enterprise customers, who should be receiving upgrade availability notifications over the coming weeks. Those more eager to apply the upgrade can contact Meraki support to have their network upgraded immediately.

San Franciso, California-based Meraki says its solutions are deployed in over 20,000 customer networks around the world.