Is WPA Secure? - Part 1
Recently I have noticed quite a bit of conjecture surrounding the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol and its use. With media hysteria now promoting WPA as no longer secure , wireless security has, unfortunately, become another great unknown to many people. In this three-part series I would like to delve into the WPA protocol and provide a background on its history, how it works and assess whether WPA is indeed insecure. By the end of this series I will have provided a foundation which will hopefully help answer two of the most common questions surrounding the wireless-security space: “Is WPA secure?” and “Should I be using WPA?”. To be comfortable in understanding the insecurities of the WPA protocol, Part 1 of this series will provide a brief background on 802.11 security. Designed as a basic security measure to secure 802.11 wireless networks, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) was implemented to provide simple confidentiality to wireless networks. Soon after its inception, weakne...