A security standard used for computing devices with wireless internet connections is called Wifi Protected Access (WPA). The Wifi Alliance created WPA to improve on the original Wifi security standard, WEP, in terms of data encryption and user authentication.
In this article, we will look more into the Wifi Protected Access (WPA) according to the GATE Syllabus for (Computer Science Engineering) CSE. We will read ahead to find out more about it.
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What are Wifi Protected Access (WPA)?
The Wifi Protected Access (WPA) and Wifi Protected Access II (WPA2) are the two security protocols & certification schemes. The Wifi Alliance has created these security protocols to protect wireless computer networks. Because of the significant flaws in the prior system, WEP, the Alliance developed these protocols.
In 2003, WPA, also known as the draft IEEE 802.11i standard, became accessible. The Wifi Alliance created it as a stopgap measure before the more complex and secure WPA2, which became available in 2004 and is a frequent abbreviation for the complete IEEE 802.11i-2004 or IEEE 802.11i standard.
Types of WPA
There are basically two types of Wifi Protected Areas: WPA and WPA3. With significant security upgrades over WPA2, the Wifi Alliance released a new version of WPA3 in January 2018 as well. But let us look into what WPA and WPA2 are.
WPA
The WPA was created as a stopgap effort to replace WEP. Wireless network interface devices that were made for WEP in 1999 could be updated with WPA firmware. However, the majority of pre-2003 APs can not be upgraded to enable WPA since more changes were needed in the wireless access points (WAPs) than on the network cards.
The IEEE 802.11i standard is almost entirely implemented by the WPA protocol. WPA adopted the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). On wireless access points and devices, WEP uses a 128-bit or 64-bit encryption key, which must be manually entered and that, once entered, cannot be modified. Because TKIP uses a per-packet key, it dynamically produces a new 128-bit key for every packet and thwarts the kinds of assaults that make WEP vulnerable.
A Message Integrity Check (MIC) built into WPA is intended to stop an attacker from changing or resending data packets. This took the place of the WEP standard’s cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The fundamental problem with CRCs was that they didn’t offer strong enough data integrity guarantees for the packets they handled. There were well-proven message authentication codes to address these issues, but they were too computationally intensive to use with older network cards.
The integrity of the packets is checked by WPA using the TKIP message integrity check method. Although TKIP is far more secure than a CRC, WPA2 uses a more secure algorithm. The message integrity code hash function, Michael, which is used to extract the keystream from small packets for use in re-injection and spoofing, was found to have restrictions that are comparable to earlier WEP flaws.
WPA2
WPA2 took over for WPA. IEEE 802.11i’s essential components were implemented by WPA2, subject to Wifi Alliance testing and certification. In particular, it contained essential support for the AES-based CCMP (Counter Mode CBC-MAC Protocol) encryption mode. In September 2004, certification started. As of March 13, 2006, WPA2 certification was mandatory for all new devices to display the Wifi trademark.
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