As wireless networks evolve, so does the security encryption needed to protect them. As usual, the methods to hack this encryption evolves just as fast, so let’s take a look at how its done and how to protect yourself from these types of threats.
WEP-based encryption was the first to be developed, and therefore first to be easily cracked and made vulnerable. Then came WPA-based encryption which took the security up a level and introduced some new methods. Let’s look at some differences between the two. WEP, or Wired Equivalent Privacy, is a basic form of wireless security where both the “WAP” and the user are configured with an encryption key of either 64 bits or 128 bits in HEX. When someone connects to the network, the access point issues a “random challenge.” The user inputs the key which is encrypted with the “challenge answer.” If the answer is correct, the user is granted access to the network. WEP is easy to crack because the network key required to gain access is static, and with very little effort can be figured out.
WPA-based encryption, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, is similar in theory to WEP but doesn’t use a static network key, but rather a “Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP),” which changes keys with every data packet sent or received. This by itself makes WPA a very secure method for wireless networks, but the problem is that in most home-based environments, a “shared pass phrase” is used to access the network. If this pass phrase is any word found in the dictionary, a hacker can crack it through what is known as a “brute force dictionary attack.” While it may take a long time, it can be done.
Since WEP can be easily cracked, we’ll focus on educating you on how your WPA-encrypted wireless network can be cracked and made vulnerable to attacks as well, and how to prevent this from happening, or at least lower your risk considerably. With WPA, there’s two different versions; PSK and RADIUS. In the simplest terms, PSK is hackable and RADIUS is not. PSK uses the TKIP process I mentioned above to authenticate the network, and therefore makes it vulnerable to cracking. While WPA is indeed much more secure than WEP, only WPA-RADIUS is un-crackable. Ninety percent of access points and home wireless routers don’t even support WPA-RADIUS, only advanced enterprise-based routers do, which leaves most WPA-secured home-based networks almost as vulnerable as WEP-secured networks.
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