A Survey on Wi-Fi Protocols: WPA and WPA2

Abstract

Wireless Network (Wi-Fi) becomes extremely popular over the world on the lastly two decades. Nowadays, most people are using the wireless networks for online banking and shopping. It also allows people to share information and communicate with each other whenever and wherever they are. Moreover, it has the advantages of flexibility and freedom of mobility and enables smart phones and laptops to provide a rapid and easy access to information. All of that makes the protection of the wireless network highly demanded to be existed. Therefore, security should be applied on Wi-Fi networks to keep users' confidentiality and privacy. Hence, different protocols have been developed and applied. Nowadays, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA, and WPA2) protocols are considered as the most applied protocols in wireless networks over the world. In this paper, we discuss the advantages, vulnerability, and the weaknesses of both of these protocols. This paper ends up with some suggestions on how to improve the functionality of these protocols. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014.