IEEE 802.11i

WPA2

IEEE 802.11i (WPA2)

IEEE 802.11i, is an amendment to the 802.11 standard specifying security mechanisms for wireless networks.

The draft standard was ratified on 24 June 2004, and supersedes the previous WEP, which was shown to have severe security weaknesses.

IEEE 802.11iThe 802.11i architecture contains the

following components:802.1x for authentication (entailing the

use of EAP and an authentication server), RSN for keeping track of associations,AES-based CCMP to provide

confidentiality, integrity and origin authentication.

WPA and IEEE 802.11i

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) had previously been introduced by the Wi-Fi Alliance as an intermediate solution to WEP insecurities.

WPA implemented a subset of 802.11i. The Wi-Fi Alliance refers to their approved, interoperable implementation of the full 802.11i as WPA2.

Robust Security Network - RSN

RSN is an component of 802.11i authentication and encryption algorithms to be used for communications between APs and wireless clients.

This means that as new threats are discovered, new algorithms can be added.

CCMP

CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol) is an IEEE 802.11i encryption protocol, created to replace, together with TKIP, the insecure WEP protocol.

Devices implementing 802.11i Windows Vista

Support WPA2 without any additional patches.

Windows XP Support of WPA2 needs an operating system

update and upgrade of wireless adapter drivers. WPA2 support for Windows XP x64 is included in

Windows XP x64 SP2.

Devices implementing 802.11i Linux

Support of WPA2 is available. Drivers are needed to support WPA as well as the utility, wpa_supplicant.

A tool called NetworkManager, with GNOME and KDE frontends can be used to configure access to protected wireless networks.

WPA2

WPA2 implements the mandatory elements of 802.11i.

In particular, in addition to TKIP and the Michael algorithm, it introduces a new AES-based algorithm, CCMP, that is considered fully secure.

WPA2

Official support for WPA2 in Microsoft Windows XP was rolled out on 1 May 2005.

Note that from March 13, 2006, WPA2 certification is mandatory for all new devices wishing to be Wi-Fi certified.