In the previous section, we described the association process for a Wi-Fi device to join a network. One of the phases involved was authentication. This section will cover the various types of authentication used on Wi-Fi WLANs and various strengths and weaknesses:
- WEP: Wired equivalent privacy. This mode sends a key in plain text from the client. The key is then encrypted and sent back to the client. WEP uses different size keys but they are typically 128 bit or 256 bit. WEP uses a shared key, which means that the same key is available to all clients. It can be easily compromised by simply listening and sniffing for all the authentication frames coming back to clients joining a network to determine the key used for everyone. ...
