The Important Topic Of Wifi Security

Wireless technology has advanced a lot in the last few years and one of the things that has changed the most is the introduction of a standard for wireless connectivity. In the last few years there has been something introduced called wifi that is supposed to help standardize the way wireless devices connect which would help improve security. Wifi security has improved a lot the last couple of years but there was a time when security over an open wireless connection was not only non-existant but a lack of security made using an open wireless connection downright dangerous.

The Wifi Alliance created wifi and wifi stands for wireless fidelity. It is a set of standards for wireless connection based on the 802.11 wireless connectivity rules and once wifi was created the process of nailing down all standards began. When publicly available wireless connectivity was first introduced it was a totally open network that anyone could access using literally any home made piece of equipment. If someone wanted to steal information from people using an open network they could whip up a device to steal the information and do so. When wifi came into the picture wifi security was instantly instituted as the standard and the first generation of wifi security was born.

First There Was

The first form of wifi security was a protocol referred to as WEP which stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. The first standard for WEP was introduced in 1999 and it was marketed as making an open wireless network as secure as a wired network. However it did not take long for experts to poke holes in this form of wifi security and soon everyone from the public to the federal government was demanding a new standard be introduced. The problem with WEP is that it could be cracked using a piece of software readily available for sale. Soon a new standard was needed.

In 2003 the Wifi Alliance announced the release of the WPA security standard which stands for Wifi Protected Access. It was a much more secure system but it still had some flaws in it that the experts were able to exploit. In 2004 the Wifi Alliance released WPA2 which was compliant with all of the IEEE 802.11i standards for wifi security and soon the new WPA2 standard was introduced to all new wireless networking products. The security may not be completely perfect yet but considering that they are trying to protect things that are floating around in the open air they are not doing such a bad job.

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