What is Wi-Fi Protected Access™ (WPA)?
• The Wi-Fi Alliance, working with the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has developed an industry standard method of offering incredible encryption techniques and enterprise style access control in a clear, easy to implement customizable package. • Stressing cross-vendor interoperability and backwards compatibility, WPA protects the value of past WLAN investments and provides a guarantee that future growth will not lock the user into a single brand of wireless solutions. WPA was also developed in a fashion that will allow legacy devices to be upgraded with Wi-Fi Protected Access™ without requiring costly hardware upgrades. • WPA offers dynamic rekeying by cycling multiple random keys that are unique to each client, to overcome the techniques commonly used to compromise WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). • Enterprise networks can benefit from RADIUS access control solutions by taking advantage of WPA’s support for 802.1X authentication. This allows the administrator
