Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is an early security protocol designed to provide data confidentiality for IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs). Introduced as part of the original 802.11 standard in 1997, WEP was intended to offer wireless networks a level of security comparable to that of traditional wired Ethernet connections.

How WEP Works

WEP operates using the RC4 stream cipher for encryption, combined with a shared secret key system. The protocol uses static, pre-shared keys (typically 40-bit or 104-bit) along with a 24-bit Initialization Vector (IV) to encrypt data packets transmitted over the wireless network. Both authentication and encryption rely on these shared keys, which must be manually configured on all devices accessing the network.

Security Vulnerabilities

Despite its original purpose, WEP contains critical cryptographic weaknesses that make it fundamentally insecure:

• Weak Initialization Vectors: The 24-bit IV is too short, leading to predictable patterns and frequent IV collisions that expose encryption keys
• Static Key Management: Reliance on unchanging shared keys creates scalability issues and simplifies key recovery attacks
• Flawed Authentication: The challenge-response authentication mechanism can be easily bypassed
• Keystream Recovery: Attackers can passively collect packets and recover the encryption key within minutes using tools like Aircrack-ng

Current Status

WEP is now considered deprecated and should never be used for securing wireless networks. It has been replaced by significantly more robust protocols including Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), WPA2, and the latest WPA3, which address WEP's fundamental security flaws and provide modern cryptographic protection.