Reducing the Risks of Public Wi-Fi

It's becoming increasingly popular for enterprises to let employees use their own mobile devices—smartphones, tablets, even laptops—for work. But what are the risks when workers connect those devices to Wi-Fi hotspots? Significant, especially for the unwary.

On most public Wi-Fi networks, information sent to and from a mobile device is unencrypted. Anyone with a laptop and easily obtained sniffer software can access all the data moving over the wireless network.

Users may also connect to rogue Wi-Fi access points that can monitor the content of all transmissions. Neither is a huge problem for people streaming a movie from Netflix, but it certainly can be if they are doing business research or moving sensitive documents. Any unpatched vulnerabilities or other security holes can also be exploited by others on the same local network.

Next Communications Enhances Network with Cisco

Next Communications, a Miami-based voice and video provider, announced today that it has deployed Cisco technology for its Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) solution to provide a strong foundation for meeting present and future consumer and business services requirements.

Next Communications' enhanced network supports the scale and performance necessary for advanced video-based services, including wholesale, high-definition video and audio-only collaboration services on wired and wireless networks. The company's objective is to exceed four billion billable minutes in 2012 without adding operational expenses. Integral to this will be the deployment of the Cisco ASR 9000 and 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers for 100GE port capacity and greater resiliency.

Cisco Declares Quarterly Cash Dividend

Cisco announced that earlier today its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per common share. The dividend will be paid on January 25, 2012 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on January 5, 2012.

Cisco's Board of Directors approved the initiation of quarterly cash dividends to its shareholders in March of 2011. The first quarterly dividend was paid on April 20, 2011. Future dividends will be subject to Board approval.

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go tohttp://newsroom.cisco.com