Various studies conducted on WEP concluded that although a wireless network protected by WEP, the third party (Cracker) can still break in.. A hacker who has a makeshift wireless equipment and software tools used to collect and analyze enough data to know the encryption key used.
Due to the large networks that can penetrate the security has developed a new technique called as WPA (WiFi Protected Access). This technique is compatible with IEEE 802.11i draft standard specification. This technique has several goals in its design, the sturdy, interoperates, can be used to replace WEP, can be implemented at home or corporate users, and available to the public as quickly as possible. There are many pros and cons comments about it. Some say, WPA has stronger encryption mechanism. However, there are pessimistic because the flow of communication used are not safe, where the engineering man-in-the-middle can be used to circumvent the process of sending data. In order for the purpose WPA is achieved, at least two major security development done. Technique was established to provide development WPA data encryption WEP is a weak point, and provides user authentication that seems lost on the development of the concept of WEP.
The technique is designed to replace WPA WEP security method, which uses static security key, using TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol), which can be dynamically changed after 10,000 packets transmitted. TKIP protocol will take the primary key as a starting point which later changed regularly so that no encryption key is used twice. Background process is automatically carried out without being noticed by the user. With the encryption key to regenerate approximately every five minutes, the WiFi network that uses WPA has been slowing the hackers who try to make cracking the key earlier.
Although the use of standard 64 and 128 bit encryption, such as technology owned WEP, WPA TKIP make more effective as an encryption mechanism. However, the problem of reduced throughput as complained of by the users of wireless networks such as not meeting the standard answer from the documents sought. Therefore, the problems associated with throughput is dependent on the hardware you have, the more specific is the chipset used. Assumption at this time, if the throughput reduction occurred in the implementation of WEP, then the rate of decline will be much greater if WPA and TKIP implemented even though some products claim that the reduction in throughput has been resolved, of course, with greater use of the chipset capabilities and capacity.
WPA uses 802.1x authentication process and EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). Taken together, these implementations will provide a solid framework on the user authentication process. Framework will be done utilizing a centralized authentication server, such as RADIUS, to authenticate the user before joining the wireless network. Also introduced mutual authentification, so the wireless network users do not knowingly join other networks that might steal its network identity.
Mechanism AES encryption (Advanced Encryption Standard) is likely to be adopted by the WPA user authentication mechanism. However, AES TKIP seems not necessary because the predicted position to provide a very strong encryption framework, although not known for how long the toughness to survive.
For users of wireless technology, the question is not focused on the understanding that WPA is better than WEP, but it is more appropriate to the improvisation that is able to resolve the current wireless security issues. Later, we will assume the user is king. What is needed is a wireless technology users ease of use that technology. To be able to use the “excess” of the WPA, the user must have the hardware and software that is compatible with these standards. From the hardware side, it means wireless access points and wireless NIC (Network Interface Card) that is used must recognize the WPA standard. Unfortunately, some hardware manufacturers will not support WPA through a firmware upgrade, so the user as being forced to buy new wireless hardware to use WPA.
From the software side, there is no Windows operating system that supports WPA by default. Computers using Windows operating system with hardware compatible with the WPA standard can be implemented after installing the WPA client. WPA client can work on a new operating system Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. For users of other operating systems have not found information about the possibility of implementing the WPA.
Hardware migration and implementation of WPA can be thought of as a very big job. Fortunately, it is not something to be done at the same time. Wireless Access Points can support WPA and WEP at the same time. This allows the slow migration to the implementation of the WPA.
In wireless networks that require a high level of security levels, additional system variations are made to be a proprietary standard WiFi transmission. In its development, several manufacturers have developed WiFi encryption technology to accommodate the needs of wireless network security. Hopefully this article useful.