Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) to secure wireless environment
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) are two security protocols and security certification programs developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks. It is important to help secure wireless network by setting up a network security key, which turns on encryption. With encryption all information sent across your network is encrypted. Only computers with the key to decrypt the information can read it. This can help prevent attempts to access the network and files without permission. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA or WPA2) is the recommended wireless network encryption method. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is not as secure. WPA was defined in response to serious weaknesses researchers had found in WEP.
A Certificate Authority Server is part of the recommended configuration, to allow WPA computers assurance that the computers with whom they share keys are who they claim.
Another key component of WPA is built-in authentication that WEP does not offer. With this feature, WPA provides roughly comparable security to VPN tunneling with WEP, with the benefit of easier administration and use.
WPA operates in either WPA-PSK mode (aka Pre-Shared Key or WPA-Personal) or WPA-802.1x mode (aka RADIUS or WPA-Enterprise). In the Personal mode, a pre-shared key or passphrase is used for authentication. In the Enterprise mode, which is more difficult to configure, the 802.1x RADIUS servers and an Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) are used for authentication. There are two encryption methods that WPA2 supported: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). TKIP addresses the encryption weaknesses of WEP. An encryption key differing in every packet. The TKIP mechanism shares a starting key between devices. Each device then changes their encryption key for every packet -- which is why WPA2 is a lot more difficult to crack.
All computers, access points, and wireless adapters must use the same type of security. As such, to use WPA, all computers, access points, and wireless adapters must have WPA software.
A Certificate Authority Server is part of the recommended configuration, to allow WPA computers assurance that the computers with whom they share keys are who they claim.
Another key component of WPA is built-in authentication that WEP does not offer. With this feature, WPA provides roughly comparable security to VPN tunneling with WEP, with the benefit of easier administration and use.
WPA operates in either WPA-PSK mode (aka Pre-Shared Key or WPA-Personal) or WPA-802.1x mode (aka RADIUS or WPA-Enterprise). In the Personal mode, a pre-shared key or passphrase is used for authentication. In the Enterprise mode, which is more difficult to configure, the 802.1x RADIUS servers and an Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) are used for authentication. There are two encryption methods that WPA2 supported: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). TKIP addresses the encryption weaknesses of WEP. An encryption key differing in every packet. The TKIP mechanism shares a starting key between devices. Each device then changes their encryption key for every packet -- which is why WPA2 is a lot more difficult to crack.
All computers, access points, and wireless adapters must use the same type of security. As such, to use WPA, all computers, access points, and wireless adapters must have WPA software.
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