Wireless Security
Over the years, people have come to embrace technology due to the various advantages it presents to them. The most accepted and widely used technological device is computers which brought about wireless internet connection. Through it, people can communicate, share content such as documents, videos and photographs and also interact on a global scale. With the increased use of the internet, internet connection sharing was developed where people have wireless internet connection for their computer devices. Most computer devices have the capability of being used as an internet access point allowing others to access the internet wirelessly through the device. Though this may be an advantage, it poses security risks because anyone within the network range can have access to the device if it is not encrypted. This means that they will be able to have access to the traffic and sensitive information stored in the computer. Due to the increasing rate of crimes related to wireless security, two security protocols, WEP and WAP, have been used to enhance internet wireless security.
Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) was introduced in 1997 to help increase the confidentiality of data and enhance wireless security. During this time, it was mostly preferred as the ideal solution for increasing wireless security through its 10/26 hexadecimal digit encryption (Borisov, Goldberg and Wagner, 2016). The method relied on the methods of either open system or shared key authentication. In the open system authentication, a person intending to connect to the wireless network was not required to provide their credentials but only had to authenticate with the access points. After access was granted and the authentication was successful, the pre-shared key would then use RC4 to encrypt the data. RC4, being a stream cipher meant that a key would never be used more than one time thus enhancing security.
Though this enhanced the security of the wireless network, it also made it prone to an attack (Borisov, Goldberg and Wagner, 2016). The same system used to ensure that no key was used twice was both an advantage and a weakness. The system created a cycle when changing the traffic key which meant that a key sequence would eventually be repeated after certain cycles in the system. The amount of traffic determined the number of packets that existed in a given period of time. Given a certain level of traffic, an individual intending to hack the WEP could do so in a matter of minutes. If the number of packets was low, the hacker only had to feed packets to the wireless network, wait for reply packets and then inspect them for the key. Little skills were needed to perform this type of hack not to mention the various software created to hack WEP using a simple home computer (Paquet, 2013).
Due to the flaw in WEP, the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WAP) was introduced to offer better wireless security. Rather than using short passwords like words in a dictionary which can easily be hacked, WAP emphasizes on the use of words that are long and random, preferable 14 digits or letters when setting up the WPA security key (Elison, 2002). It ensures that only the people who know the key can access the wireless network. It relies on a TKIP encryption algorithm which makes the key harder to decrypt or hack. WPA uses 8 to 63 character passphrase in its pre-shared share key which creates a form of authentication based on RADIUS which is more secure than WEP.
Even though WAP offers better security than WEP, users could compromise its success in enhancing the wireless security depending on the type of pre-shared shared keys they use (Ellison, 2002). In the case where the user uses a weak pre-share shared key, a hacker could de-authenticate the user and then wait for him to reconnect. The reconnection will enable the hacker to capture the message exchanged during reconnection and get the key from the passphrases exchanged in the process. There are also other software that the hacker could use and hack the wireless network in a matter of minutes. The success of WPA in preventing wireless internet attacks will therefore depend on the user and the type of keys they use. Users must ensure they use strong passphrases or ensure that their hexadecimal key incorporates 64 characters so as to prevent hackers from getting access to their computers and wireless internet devices (Paquet, 2013).
Even with the various security protocols put in place to enhance wireless security, the best way to prevent hackers from getting access is by practicing safe wireless usage. In the case of shared passwords, informing everyone with access to the password of the importance of wireless security will help making it more secure. They will be more vigilant to people that seek access to the network thus making it difficult to hack. While setting up a security key or password, it is important to ensure that the characters selected are as random as possible. This will make them difficult to decrypt and therefore more secure. Even though WAP is an improvement of WEP and is more secure, it is the activities of the user that will ensure that its success in maintaining wireless security is upheld.
References
Borisov, Goldberg and Wagner, (2016) “Security of WEP algorithm” Berkley University
Ellison C. (2002) “Wireless LANs at risk” PC Magazine
Paquet C. (2013) “Network security concept and policies” Cisco Press
