Security Protocol- WEP, WPA and WPA2

 Security Protocol- WEP, WPA and WPA2  

Security Protocol

Since 1990 there have been many changes in the wifi security system. The wifi security system has been

improved and working more effectively since then going through so many changes and upgrades

including the security protocols WEP, WPA and WPA2. All are wireless security protocols who have

individual existence while being used for the same purpose. These security protocols are to protect you from unwanted access by the intruders. But it’s not an easy task to protect your connection from the unwanted connections which are trying to connect to your network as wifi spreads in every direction are the area within its range. Today we are going to explain the three generations of security protocols -    WEP, WPA and WPA2.

WEP- Security Protocol from Past

WEP was the former one amongst the three generations of security protocols. WEP means

Weird Equivalent Privacy. It has been being used from 1999 to 2004. WEP is not in use these days as it’s easy to break into the security protocol of or connect to the Wi-Fi connection intruding into WEP

security protocol.  It was poorly designed and configured. In 1999 WEP was developed to give security to the wireless network. In spite of doing hard work to develop and solve the security issues, WEP was still a vulnerable security protocol. For security purpose, WEP was abandoned in 2004 and a new was launched in the prior to the abandonment which called WPA. WEP can be named as the genesis of the security protocol as it was the beginning of the Wi-Fi protocol system.

 Security Protocol- WEP, WPA and WPA2  | wireless security

WPA- Advanced compared to WEP

In place of WEP, WPA was a trial as an enhanced product to provide security protocol to the wifi network. As

I said earlier it launched just the prior year to the abandoned year of WEP. PSK, a pre-shared key, was

used in the most modern version of WPA and a Temporal Key Integrity Protocol which was used for

encryption. WPA also used an authentication server to use those keys more securely.

WPA Version 2- enterprise security protocol

WPA-2 is the upgraded version of WPA with advanced encryption standard. This Standard called AES in short and it is a US Government certified standard for the encryption of most secret data. It must look like that it’s good for securing a home network but in reality, it actually works well for the enterprise level. After so many tries to make it a better protocol, the possibilities of WPS attack was still there which kept the inventors work harder to upgrade it even more since its launch in 2004. It’s still vulnerable yet the most powerful among the three generations of security protocols - WEP, WPA and WPA2.

WPA version 3- next-generation security protocol

It’s a smart security protocol having a new key exchange protocol which gives protection from the

offline password attack, which is done through the random dictionary method. In WPA -2 hackers were able to connect to any Wi-Fi network guessing the password as many times as they want. WPA-3 will provide protection from those dictionary attack. And it’s a good security protocol to use at home beside the three generations of security protocols - WEP, WPA and WPA2. In 2018, the transition process has already been stared ensuring a safer Wi-Fi security.