Security Issues with Wireless Protocols Kent Strawcutter

WEP Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a deprecated algorithm to secure 802.11 wireless networks. WEP uses radio transmission and is susceptible to eavesdropping. When introduced in 1999, WEP was intended to provide comparable security to a wired network. Was cracked within minutes in 2001 with standard hardware

WEP Issues Passive attacks to decrypt traffic based on statistical analysis. - attacker intercepts traffic and waits for IV collisions, collecting enough to decrypt all packets

WEP Issues Active attack to inject new traffic from unauthorized mobile stations, based on known plaintext. - attacker constructs correctly encrypted packets from known plain text for one encrypted packet

WEP Issues Active attacks to decrypt traffic, based on tricking the access point. - attacker transforms the destination IP to a machine he controls

WEP Issues Dictionary-building attack that, after analysis of about a day's worth of traffic, allows real-time automated decryption of all traffic.

WPA Wi-Fi Protected Access Implemented in response to WEP security flaws Designed to work with pre-WPA network cards Introduced in 2003

WPA The passphrase may be from 8 to 63 printable ASCII characters or 64 hexadecimal digits (256 bits) Simple passphrases may be cracked

WPA2 Introduced in 2004 Strong encryption and authentication support for infrastructure and ad-hoc networks (WPA is limited to infrastructure networks)

WPA2 WPA2 - Personal protects unauthorized network access by utilizing a set-up password. WPA2 - Enterprise verifies network users through a server. WPA2 is backward compatible with WPA