To address the confidentiality issues of trade wireless networks, the 802.11 suitable includes a simple mechanism for encryption of data, it is Wired Equivalent Privacy.
However, any serious vulnerabilities were identified by cryptologists. Wep is sometimes dubbed with the nickname of Weak Encryption Protocol. Wep has been superseded by Wpa in 2003 and by Wpa in 2004 (Wpa2 is the version of the Ieee 802.11i suitable certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance.
Wep is an encryption protocol in payment of 802.11 frames using the Rc4 symmetric algorithm with key length of 64 bits or 128 bits. The principle of Wep is to define initially a incommunicable key of 40 or 128 bits. This incommunicable key must be declared at the entrance point and clients. The key is to create a pseudo-random length equal to the length of the frame. Each transmission of data is then encrypted using the pseudo-random estimate as a mask with an Exclusive or between the pseudo-random estimate and the frame.
The session key shared by all stations is static, that to deploy a large estimate of wireless stations it is significant to configure them using the same session key. Thus knowledge of the key is adequate to decrypt communications.
In addition, 24-bit key is used only for initialization, which means that only 40-bit 64-bit key used to encrypt and easily 104 bits to 128 bits key.
In the case of 40-bit key, a brute-force strike (trying all potential keys) can swiftly bring the hacker to find the session key. Also a fault detected by Fluhrer, Mantin and Shamir on the generation of pseudo-random string makes potential the discovery of the session key stock 100 Mb to 1 Gb of traffic created intentionally.
Wep is not adequate to ensure real privacy. However, it is strongly advised to at least implement a 128-bit Wep protection to ensure a minimum level of confidentiality and avoiding in this way 90% risk of intrusion.
To get a higher level of protection you should use Wpa or Wpa2. Use of encrypted tunneling protocols can provide collect data transmission under an insecure network. But replacements for Wep have been developed to restore protection to the Wifi network itself.
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