A Dalhousie University research team is exploring ways to prevent the kind of major database theft that hit the parent company of Winners and HomeSense stores last year.

"Network security problems, especially in the wireless domain, are becoming increasingly widespread in recent years," said Dalhousie computer science professor Srini Sampalli, who has received a five-year, $160,000 research grant from the National Sciences and Research Council of Canada to investigate wireless network security.

"Wireless networks are inherently less secure than their wired counterparts due to their free-space transmission," he said. "In addition, the primary focus in wireless technologies has been on convenience, rather than security."

As an example, Mr. Sampalli cited the case of TJX Companies Inc. of Framingham, Mass., which last year acknowledged that hackers had broken into the company’s central database, where they gained access to driver’s licence numbers, social security information and as many as 200 million credit card numbers.

Disclosure of the breach prompted a number of banks to issue new credit cards to clients who had used them at TJX-owned stores, including Winners and HomeSense outlets in Canada.

It also highlighted the potential vulnerability of wireless networks, which is what the Dalhousie research project plans to examine, in collaboration with a complementary project sponsored by Industry Canada.

"Please keep in mind that it is not yet proven that wireless security breach was the cause, but there is a strong possibility," Mr. Sampalli said...

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