Ways to Break the Wi-Fi Security

Wi-Fi has a lot of security vulnerabilities. Unfortunately for Wi-Fi the vulnerabilities and the severity of them became widely known too late. At the time of the famous paper on how to crack a WEP key, early 2001, there were already millions of 802.11 products sold world-wide. At that point, issuing a fix or recalling all products was not feasible. So there are two ways to break the Wi-Fi security.

1. Wired Equivalent Privacy(WEP)

2. Wi-Fi Protected Access(WPA)

WEP has the greatest number of vulnerabilities, WEP is where the main focus is directed. WPA is interesting since it replaces WEP in many circumstances, but is still insecure to a limited extend.

1. Wired Equivalent Privacy(WEP):-  WEP is only meant to give Wi-Fi the same security attributes that are inherent to an equivalent wired network. Unfortunately, WEP does not provide this level of security.WEP is a security protocol for wireless Local Area Networks(WLANs) and it is designed to provide the same level of security as that of a wired LAN. It uses the radio waves. WEP provide the security be encrypting data over radio waves so that it is protected as it is transmitted from one end point to another.

2. Wi-Fi Protected Privacy(WPA):- WPA is a security protocols and certifications program developed by the Wi-Fi alliance to secure wireless computer networks. The few vulnerabilities inherent in WPA are demonstrated.

WPA-PSK:- Wi-Fi Protected Access—Pre-Shared Key (WPA-PSK) is currently the most common mode of operating a WPA protected Wi-Fi network. Much like WEP, a secret key is shared among all the clients in the network. This shared master key is called the Pairwise Master Key (PMK). When a client connects to an access point, a Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) is derived from the PMK, client and access point MAC address, and a pair of nonce. From the PTK a MIC key is generated, which will be used to create MICs on the transmitted data. Also calculated from the PTK are the RC4 encryption keys, which are different from each encrypted frame.

WPA provides additional security by:-

• Requiring authentication using 802.1X
• Requiring re-keying using TKIP
• Augmenting the ICV (Integrity Check Value) with a MIC (Message Integrity Check), to protect the header as well as the payload
• Implementing a frame counter to discourage replay attacks

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