Vocabulary:
- Encryption: A way of turning plain text into a secret message that is hard to interpret.
- Payload: The actual message being transmitted within metadata and headers.
- WiFi router: A device that allows connection to the internet within your local area network.
- Infinite pseudo-random: Trying to generate a random sequence with a set of mathematical procedures.
- Bits: A unit of information expressed in 1’s and 0’s.
Have you heard of these acronyms? If not, they are Wireless Security Methods. They encrypt information that you send to the internet through your WiFi router, where no outsider can read or understand it. They also make sure that no outsider can connect to your network.
These four methods have their way of securing your data using algorithms, which leads to varying levels of security. However, some security algorithms are not secure anymore because of many exposed vulnerabilities found in them.
If I were to arrange these methods from least secure to most secure, it would be Open WiFi, WEP, WPA, WPA2, and then WPA3.
First, to understand all this information, you must know what an encryption key is. It is a randomized string of characters used to decrypt and encrypt data. It is randomized to ensure that no one would be able to predict it other than the sender and the receiver. It is a unique key used to lock and unlock the door to a payload. Also, you must know PSK, a.k.a. Pre Shared Key. This means that the encryption key was previously shared through a secure channel between 2 devices long before sending any data.
WEP, a.k.a. Wireless Equivalent Privacy, is the weakest type of encryption. This was founded in 1999, the first-ever Wireless Security Method, which uses a 40-bit encryption key. It was once secure until hackers found a vulnerability to its encryption method, RC4 encryption. It is a stream cipher, a cipher that can expand a short key into an infinite pseudo-random keystream. It uses XOR encryption one byte at a time. The problem with this is that if you XOR encrypt the encrypted data twice, you can go back to the original data. So all you need is a program like aircrack-ng to the encrypted data and BOOM! You are in!
FUN FACT: Most newer routers do not even allow the option of WEP!
WPA, a.k.a. WiFi Protected Access is a way stronger type of encryption, making it harder to hack, but it still might be possible. The advantage of this type of encryption is that it uses TKIP encryption (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol). The encryption key is newly generated time after time. However, this still might potentially be vulnerable to many attacks (i.e., WPA pixie dust). I recommend that you do further research to understand the vulnerabilities.
FUN FACT 2: You can crack WEP in a matter of seconds!
WPA2, a.k.a. WiFi Protected Access v2 is on another level of security. You can use either TKIP or AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a 64-bit encryption key. It is recommended to use AES encryption because it is complex and hard to decrypt without the right information. The US government adopted this type of encryption, so I would trust its ability to secure your network.
WPA3, a.k.a. WiFi Protected Access v3 is impossible to crack or brute force. It uses either a 128-bit or 258-bit AES encryption key. This was recently developed in 2019, and it is currently the best type of Wireless Security Method.
List of WPA/WPA2/WPA3 types…NO WEP OK!
- WPA 64
- WPA 128
- WPA-PSK (TKIP)
- WPA-PSK (AES)
- WPA2-PSK (TKIP)
- WPA2-PSK (AES)
- WPA/WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES)
WPA/WPA2 uses either one based on what your device is compatible to. If your device is old, they might not be compatible with the WPA2 encryption method, so if you chose this option, older devices could connect to your network.