This is an example of a transitional network. If taking an exam an easy way to remember the difference is to remember TKIP and CCMP end in 'P' for encryption protocol.Īssume you have a WPA/TKIP SSID today and you want to move to WPA2/AES. You can see vendors are mixing a cipher with a encryption protocol. AES and RC4 are ciphers, CCMP/AES and TKIP/RC4. Really it should be referenced as TKIP and CCMP, not AES. NOTE: You often see TKIP and AES referenced when securing a WiFi client.

WPA2 / 802.11i uses CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code) as a means of encryption, TKIP is optional according to the spec. WPA2 / 802.11i also comes in two flavors, 802.1X and PSK, like WPA. The official standard 802.11i, also called WPA2, has an almost identical frame work as WPA. When WPA is used specific WPA security information can be found in the WPA IE. WPA uses TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) as a means of encryption. PSK uses a shared key between the access point and client radio. 802.1X uses the EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). 802.1X (Enterprise) and PSK (Shared Key). WPA stands for Wireless Protective Access. WiFi Alliance introduced a stop gap called WPA. WEP was deployed in OPEN or SHARED authentication, but not to be confused with true user authentication. Dynamic WEP was never part of the 802.11 standard. Whereby 802.1X was used for authentication and WEP was used for encryption. Vendor specific implementations allowed for DYNAMIC WEP. WEP was used for encryption and did not have a means of authentication. Aircrack-ng and other tools are used to exploit replayed IVs (Initialization Vectors) whereby exposing the WEP key. It had a very short shelf life and was quickly exploited. 'Information elements are variable in length and are optional.'Įarly in 802.11, the only means of security was WEP. 'Information fields are fixed-length mandatory fields in the body of a management frame' In this blog post we will dive head first into wireless security 101, specifically from a frame perspective.įor clarification there are Information Fields and Information Elements.

More specifically Management subtype frames. These IEs can be found in 802.11 Management frames. In this blog post I want to share the WPA IE, RSN IE and details of wireless security as it relates to layer 2 frames.

Wifi explorer for specific location