Hello, I am looking for someone to write an article on WEP KEY and Its Vulnerabilities. It needs to be at least 1250 words. Wired Equivalent Privacy makes the WLAN secure, and its role incorporates authentication and encryption of the wireless adapters on the network. It can be applied to the wireless devices at the data-link layer. The encryption algorithm in the WEP is the RC4. This paper analyses the working, algorithm and structure used in the WEP protocol. It also seeks to analyze the loopholes that attackers can access to bypass the wireless network, WEP. The paper as well aims to come up with proactive measures that can be incorporated to ensure the wireless networks stay safe and be attack-proof in this age of increased cases of cyber threats (Geier, 2002)

How Wired Equivalent Privacy works

The Wired Equivalent Privacy was developed by the IEEE, a group that consists of volunteer users. This is the encryption for the 802.11 wireless networks. It grants security for the data transmitted from point to point via the wireless network through the radio waves. It serves three functions. it guards against unauthorized access, protects the network against compromise to the data (data integrity) and confidentiality (eavesdropping).

The RC4 cipher combines a 40-bit WEP key with Initialization Vector (IV), a random number in the data encryption. The actual data in the transmission is attached to the sender’s XORs stream cipher, and this produces the ciphertext. The receiver is in charge of the cipher text’s data description using the attached IV and the stored WEP key. Security breaches can be evident. Though it might be hard for inexperienced sniffers to get through the network, hardcore hackers can crack the WEP keys in a quarter an hour (Geier, 2002).

As part of the process of encryption, the WEP makes a “seed” that is a key schedule through the concatenation of the secret key shared by the sender together with an initialization vector, which is 24-bit. The IV is a vital component such that it can be used since it extends the life of the secret key, and the sending station can be the initialization vector. The WEP then incorporates the “seed” in the pseudo-number generator. The result is the production of the keystream that equals the frame’s payload in length in addition to a 32-bit (ICV), the integrity check value. If the receiving station gets discrepancies in the ICV, then the frame will be rejected.