WPA stands for Wireless Protected Access. The WPA standard was introduced by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The WPA standard introduced TKIP (Temporal Key integrity Protocol) as an advancement on WEP to provide better security. WPA also introduced upper layer user authentication for 802.11 devices. Two methods for user authentication were described
- Pre-shared Key (EAPOL Handshake)
- 802.1X upper layer EAP/EAPOL handshake for user authentication
NOTE: EAP and EAPOL will be discussed in later articles on Pre-shared key and 802.1X authentication mechanism
A new information Element was introduced that allowed WLAN devices to negotiate parameters for authentication (WPA IE)
The 802.11 standards task-group in the meantime was also developing the 802.11i standard which incorporated the WPA features and provided a more secure security algorithm – AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). The 802.11i Task-group also provided a new Information element termed the RSN (Robust Security Network) IE. The features described in 802.11i for user authentication and security is termed WPA2.