Netgear WGU624 User Manual download pdf (Page 153)

Reference Manual for the Double 108 Mbps Wireless Firewall Router WGU624

Wireless Networking Basics D-9

M-10153-01

The IEEE introduced the WEP as an optional security measure to secure 802.11b (Wi-Fi) WLANs,

but inherent weaknesses in the standard soon became obvious. In response to this situation, the

Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new security architecture in October 2002 that remedies the

shortcomings of WEP. This standard, formerly known as Safe Secure Network (SSN), is designed

to work with existing 802.11 products and offers forward compatibility with 802.11i, the new

wireless security architecture being defined in the IEEE.

WPA offers the following benefits:

• Enhanced data privacy

• Robust key management

• Data origin authentication

• Data integrity protection

How Does WPA Compare to WEP?

WEP is a data encryption method and is not intended as a user authentication mechanism. WPA

user authentication is implemented using 802.1x and the Extensible Authentication Protocol

(EAP). Support for 802.1x authentication is required in WPA. In the 802.11 standard, 802.1x

authentication was optional. For details on EAP specifically, refer to IETF's RFC 2284.

With 802.11 WEP, all access points and client wireless adapters on a particular wireless LAN must

use the same encryption key. A major problem with the 802.11 standard is that the keys are

cumbersome to change. If you do not update the WEP keys often, an unauthorized person with a

sniffing tool can monitor your network for less than a day and decode the encrypted messages.

Products based on the 802.11 standard alone offer system administrators no effective method to

update the keys.

For 802.11, WEP encryption is optional. For WPA, encryption using Temporal Key Integrity

Protocol (TKIP) is required. TKIP replaces WEP with a new encryption algorithm that is stronger

than the WEP algorithm, but that uses the calculation facilities present on existing wireless devices

to perform encryption operations. TKIP provides important data encryption enhancements

including a per-packet key mixing function, a message integrity check (MIC) named Michael, an

extended initialization vector (IV) with sequencing rules, and a re-keying mechanism. Through

these enhancements, TKIP addresses all of known WEP vulnerabilities.

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Netgear WGU624 User Manual Page 153