Monday, November 10, 2008

Battered, but not broken: understanding the WPA crack

You may have heard recently that the WPA security protocol for WiFi had been cracked. Well, sort of. To be sure, it has been compromised, but you might be just fine and you should definitely continue to use WPA if WPA2 is not available in your wireless router.

And while we're on the subject, under no circumstances should you rely on WEP for wireless encryption unless you have absolutely no other choice and you firmly believe that abstinence-only education works.

Tews pointed out that "if you used security features just for preventing other people from using your bandwidth, you are perfectly safe," which is the case for most home users. Someone can't use this attack to break into a home or corporate network, nor decipher all the data that passes.
Read on as Glenn Fleishman at Ars Technica provides all the nerdy details.

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