What is the difference between WPA, WPA2 and 802.11i?
Let’s start by looking at what is not different. First, WPA2 and 802.11i are the same. WPA2 is the name used by the Wi-Fi Alliance, whereas 802.11i is the name given to the standard by the IEEE. You may also see the term RSN, Robust Security Network, which is part of WPA2/802.11i but is often used interchangeably. Second, WPA and WPA2 can use the same authentication methods, because they are all EAP based. EAP stands for Extensible Authentication Protocol and, as the name suggests, many different protocols can be built on top of EAP. So both EAP/TLS as well as EAP/PEAP-MSCHAPV2 will work both for WPA and for WPA2. A key difference between WPA and WPA2 is the underlying encryption method. For WPA this is TKIP/RC4, for WPA2 this is CCMP/AES. AES is the Advanced Encryption Standard and is used by the US Department of Defence as a replacement for older encryption standards. It is very secure. AES can be used in several modes – CCMP is the mode used by WPA2. You will see both terms used int
