12-03-2011, 03:40 PM
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Wi-Fi Security
Wi-Fi depends on cryptographic methods to enable security. In this thesis, the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) security mechanisms. Data transmitted in the network should not be readable by anyone but those communicating. Only clients who know a shared secret may connect to the network. WEP was the first cryptographic protocol developed for Wi-Fi to enable privacy and authentication. WEP, however, was not secure after all. To rectify the security issues with WEP, the Wi-Fi Alliance pushed a new cryptographic protocol, WPA. Since then, a common practice of securing a WPA enabled network with passwords has been discovered to be vulnerable to an offline dictionary-attack. Even though WPA itself is thought to be secure, apart from the dictionary-attack, it was a quick fix to the problems in WEP. WPA is a subset of a Robust Security Network (RSN),which was introduced in an early draft of a security standard developed by Institute of Eletrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) denoted 802.11i [20]. Other than the similarities between WPA and RSN, IEEE 802.11i is not covered in this thesis.
Wi-Fi Security
Wi-Fi depends on cryptographic methods to enable security. In this thesis, the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) security mechanisms. Data transmitted in the network should not be readable by anyone but those communicating. Only clients who know a shared secret may connect to the network. WEP was the first cryptographic protocol developed for Wi-Fi to enable privacy and authentication. WEP, however, was not secure after all. To rectify the security issues with WEP, the Wi-Fi Alliance pushed a new cryptographic protocol, WPA. Since then, a common practice of securing a WPA enabled network with passwords has been discovered to be vulnerable to an offline dictionary-attack. Even though WPA itself is thought to be secure, apart from the dictionary-attack, it was a quick fix to the problems in WEP. WPA is a subset of a Robust Security Network (RSN),which was introduced in an early draft of a security standard developed by Institute of Eletrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) denoted 802.11i [20]. Other than the similarities between WPA and RSN, IEEE 802.11i is not covered in this thesis.
