Wireless Encryption and WPA2 Weaknesses

Abstract

Encryption is prevalent in many forms of modern communications. Still, wireless communications security holds higher priority since any device can easily intercept the data in its range. This paper will focus specifically on IEEE 802.11 wireless communication and the evolution of its encryption protocols from WEP to the current WPA3 to identify current weaknesses and methods for improvement. There are mechanisms to offer better protection for wireless network communications, such as RADIUS servers, certificates, and new exchange approaches from WPA3. However, some of these solutions not only entail resource overhead, but vulnerabilities have also been discovered in the WPA2 and even in the newest WPA3 protocols. Therefore, this paper includes the cryptography algorithms selected and the overhead required to implement them, such as computational resources, certificates, and external server requirements.