Wi-Fi Security Broken Down and On the Ropes

More bad news for Wi-Fi's perpetually troubled security system. Another round of hacks and attacks have left the networking protocol all but wide open to attacks from those snooping in from the outside.

Says one researcher in this BBC story, "WEP as a security measure is so broken that your (and everyone else's) kid sister can easily circumvent it." Kid sister? That may be hyperbole, but any remotely sophisticated hacker can download easily accessible programs on the internet to break Wi-Fi security in a matter of minutes. Such attacks date all the way back to 2001, but the latest decodes WEP keys faster than ever. Though the story doesn't mention it, WEP's successor, WPA, is also now at some risk from the same attacks.

Despite its age, WEP is still in wide use because of the large amount of old equipment on the market. Some of it can be upgraded to support more recent security standards, but much "legacy" equipment can't. If one device on a network requires WEP, then all devices must use it, which puts the entire network at risk.

The latest security standard, WPA2, was rolled out way back in 2004. It still has very poor support in even newer networking components.

So what should you do? If you're concerned about wireless eavesdroppers, you might consider upgrading any very old equipment to take advantage of at least WPA and preferably WPA2 security. As well, update firmware and drivers where you can in order to save money. Whatever you do, try to get off of WEP as soon as you can.

LINK: Wi-fi security system is 'broken'