Understanding wireless protection and security

Before we move onto forensic investigation of wireless security breaches, we need to understand the various facets of wireless protection and the elements of security therein.

Let's start with a bit of a walk down memory lane.

Wired equivalent privacy

During September, 1999, the WEP security algorithm was created. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), as the name suggests, was supposed to be as secure as wired Ethernet networks. At one point of time, it was the most used security algorithm. This was due to the fact that it was backwards compatible and was the first choice in the early router control options.

The early versions of WEP were particularly weak as the US Government had restrictions on the export of cryptographic technology that used greater than 64-bit encryption. This led the manufacturers to restrict themselves to the 64-bit encryption.

Once the US Government lifted the restrictions, 128-bit and 256-bit encryptions were introduced....