Question

Identify the four different types of wireless encryption, and indicate which ones provide the best security. Provide a brief explanation of each.

Answer 1

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP):

The original encryption protocol developed for wireless networks. As its name implies, WEP was designed to provide the same level of security as wired networks. However, WEP has many well-known security flaws, is difficult to configure, and is easily broken.

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Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA):

Introduced as an interim security enhancement over WEP while the 802.11i wireless security standard was being developed. Most current WPA implementations use a preshared key (PSK), commonly referred to as WPA Personal, and the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP, pronounced tee-kip) for encryption. WPA Enterprise uses an authentication server to generate keys or certificates.

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Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2 (WPA2):

Based on the 802.11i wireless security standard, which was finalized in 2004. The most significant enhancement to WPA2 over WPA is the use of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for encryption. The security provided by AES is sufficient (and approved) for use by the U.S. government to encrypt information classified as top secret — it’s probably good enough to protect your secrets as well!

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