D-Link DWA-121 - Wireless Security; What is WPA?

33D-Link DWA-121 User Manual
Section 4 - Wireless Security
Wireless Security
This section will show you the dierent levels of security you can use to protect your data from intruders. The
DWA-121 oers the following types of security:
•WPA2(Wi-FiProtectedAccess2)  •WPA2-PSK(Pre-SharedKey)
•WPA(Wi-FiProtectedAccess)  •WPA-PSK(Pre-SharedKey)
What is WPA?
WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, is a Wi-Fi standard that was designed to improve the security features of WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy).
The 2 major improvements over WEP:
• ImproveddataencryptionthroughtheTemporalKeyIntegrityProtocol(TKIP).TKIPscramblesthekeysusingahashingalgorithm
and, by adding an integrity-checking feature, ensures that the keys haven’t been tampered with. WPA2 is based on 802.11i and
uses Advanced Encryption Standard instead of TKIP.
• Userauthentication,whichisgenerallymissinginWEP,throughtheextensibleauthenticationprotocol(EAP).WEPregulatesaccess
to a wireless network based on a computer’s hardware-specic MAC address, which is relatively simple to be snied out and stolen.
EAPisbuiltonamoresecurepublic-keyencryptionsystemtoensurethatonlyauthorizednetworkuserscanaccessthenetwork.
WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK uses a passphrase or key to authenticate your wireless connection. The key is an alpha-numeric password between 8 and 63
characterslong.Thepasswordcanincludesymbols(!?*&_)andspaces.Thiskeymustbetheexactsamekeyenteredonyourwirelessrouteror
access point.
WPA/WPA2 incorporates user authentication through the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). EAP is built on a more secure public key encryption
systemtoensurethatonlyauthorizednetworkuserscanaccessthenetwork.