

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)Ī new, interim standard sought to temporarily “patch” the problem of WEP’s (lack of) security. While some devices came to offer 152-bit or 256-bit WEP variants, this failed to solve the fundamental problems of WEP’s underlying encryption mechanism.
#Wifi wep vs wpa cracked
In the case of 128-bit WEP, your Wi-Fi password can be cracked by publicly-available tools in a matter of around 60 seconds to three minutes. Initialization Vector (IV): fixed-size input to a low-level cryptographic algorithm, usually random.Ĭombined with the use of RC4, this left WEP particularly susceptible to related-key attack.

WEP didn’t help matters either by simply concatenating the key with the initialization vector – which is to say, it sort of mashed its secret-sauce bits together and hoped for the best. (When’s the last time you changed your Wi-Fi password? Right.) WEP employs a single shared key among its users that must be manually entered on an access point device. This cipher gained popularity due to its speed and simplicity, but that came at a cost. WEP’s underlying encryption mechanism is the RC4 stream cipher. The small key size resulted in being easier to brute-force, especially when that key doesn’t often change. Though this was later lifted to 128-bit, even this form of encryption offered a very limited possible key size. Government restrictions on the export of cryptographic technology caused access point manufacturers to limit their devices to 64-bit encryption. Governments reacted by attempting to keep their best secret-sauce recipes at home.Īround the time of WEP, U.S.
#Wifi wep vs wpa code
