When you set up your Wifi network, you are told that you have to secure it to make sure that no one is able to steal your information.
You are able to do that through different means but one of the ways is to set up encryption on the network.
You will usually have a couple of options that you can set up when you are dealing with encryption on your wireless network – these options are WEP, WPA, and WPA 2.
For years people have been asked to switch to WPA or WPA2 because WEP was easily cracked.
Now there seems to be a hole in the WPA2 standard that we need to worry about too.
In this article I will show you what encryption is and talk about the hole that is in the WPA2 standard.
What Is Encryption?
When we talk about encryption on the network we are talking about the ability to mix up the signal so that anyone who is able to tap into it will not be able to understand the data that they get.
All three of these standards are encryption-based but with encryption there are different levels of security.
When it came to network security, the WPA 2 was considered to be the best.
When hackers would try a brute force attack on the standard they would have to wait a long time for the attack to work.
But now there has been another way found to attack WPA2.
How WPA 2 Was Breached
The attack on WPA 2 is not a brute force style of attack; it is a man in the middle attack.
This means that someone is able to intercept the traffic that is going to another party even though that traffic is encrypted with WPA 2.
The person in the middle can decrypt the data that is being transferred while it is in the air.
They can read the data or just change the data and then finish the transfer to the other person.
The breach is more of a work around than actually cracking the system but that is enough for it to be effective.
The work around is good enough that your data is at risk.
And this is something that you should be worried about.
There are always going to be holes in security systems.
Nothing is safe as long as there is one person that is good and they are working on the problem as their main focus.
All systems are able to be cracked; we just have to be aware in what ways the system can be compromised.
With this knowledge, you can do what you can to keep that from happening.
Having a secured system is very important and relying on technology to solve the problem is only half the battle.
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