Vulnerabilities in WEP

Vulnerabilities in WEP
All is not what it seems with WEP and its associated parameters used to encrypt data, as
it is inherently flawed and a number of sensationalized press releases have documented
its shortcomings. We will discuss in more detail the problems associated with WEP in
the following section. The introduction of WEP and its bias towards the RC4 algorithm
has resulted in the attacks we have experienced on WiFi equipment. Interestingly, there
are several pieces of software available to download that will set about to break the
encryption process employed by WEP. WEP notoriously suffered from key recovery
attacks, where hackers made assumptions about the WEP key value based upon the value
given in the IV (the unencrypted value prefixed to the ciphertext). Hacking isn’t necessarily
exclusive to greasy skinned geeks alone in their bedrooms accompanied with several
boxes of tissues; organizations are created specifically to challenge the security ethics
of a particular encryption scheme; companies such as RSA Security. It was this company,
along with other academics/researchers, that highlighted the ineffective strategy within
the RC4 algorithm, namely the initial selection of the IV value. Such support and constructive
use of time can only ensure the future success of the technology and will ultimately
help us to stay one step ahead of our critics and the hackers.