» Topic:  Don't use WEP for Wi-Fi security, researchers say

» Added by:  Computerworld

» Date:  6.4.2007

  The Wi-Fi security protocol WEP should not be relied on to protect sensitive material, according to three German security researchers who have discovered a faster way to crack it. They plan to demonstrate their findings at a security conference in Hamburg this weekend.

Mathematicians showed as long ago as 2001 that the RC4 key scheduling algorithm underlying the WEP protocol was flawed, but attacks on it required the interception of around 4 million packets of data in order to calculate the full WEP security key.