Wireless Cryptographic Protocols 6.3

Question 1

Wireless Encryption

Answer 1

All wireless computers are radio transmitters and receivers. Thus anyone could listen in. The solution is to encrypt the data. Even if they captured all the data, they still couldn’t read it through the encryption. Only the people with the WPA or WPA2 password can transmit and listen.

Question 2

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

Answer 2

WEP was discovered to have serious cryptographic weaknesses and thus DO NOT USE.

Question 3

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)

Answer 3

WPA was the solution to replace WEP. WPA used RC4 ciphers with Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). WPA takes uses an IV and a 128-bit encryption key.

Question 4

Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP)

Answer 4

Allows a secret root key with an IV. Also adds a sequence counter to prevent replay attacks. Furthermore it implemented a 64-bit message integrity check. Eventually it had it’s own set of vulnerabilities. Eventually was depricated.

Question 5

WPA2

Answer 5

WPA2 began in 2004. Uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) instead of RC4 and Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining (CCMP) which replaced TKIP.

Question 6

Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining (CCMP)

Answer 6

CCMP is a block cipher mode that uses 128-bit keys and 128-bit block sizes. It provides data confidentiality through AES, authentication, and access control.