Review: AirDefence Enterprise v7.3

For: Solid product with excellent ease of use and performance
Against: Nothing we found during our testing
Verdict: For its excellent value, ease of use and performance we rate this our Best Buy

It detects wireless intrusion attempts by analysing threats in real time against historical data. This allows accurate detection of various wireless attacks and anomalous behaviour.

Automated protection works by stopping any connection attempts by a rogue device before access is gained to the network. This ensures that unauthorised users and devices are disconnected. The system then generates and maintains a log of termination actions for audit records.

Administrators can define, monitor and enforce policy in the areas of security, performance, usage and vendor types. The product can generate regulatory compliance reports. The product provides forensic data to retrace any device’s activity down to the minute. This helps investigators to rewind and review more than 290 data points per wireless device per minute from stored months of historical data.

We found this product the easiest to set up of any we tested. It is true plug and play. Within seconds of completing the installation it discovered its sensor and immediately began to report rogue access points. The user interface is excellent and navigation is intuitive.

The documentation is well-structured, providing the reader with the necessary information for deployment and administration. The user guide is easy to understand and troubleshooting charts make correcting problems less troublesome. AirDefense provides quick-start guides for setting up the user, sensor and the server. A good use of screenshots is a key strength of the material.

AirDefense has two support options: the first includes hardware support, all software upgrades and office-hour telephone support, while option 2 adds round-the-clock support. The company’s website is also a valuable resource for support, training information, seminars, webinars and access to the support portal.

Pricing starts at around £4,485 for a starter kit with server, five sensors and licences, which, given the rich feature set and ease of use provides excellent value.

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