When wireless networking (Wi-Fi) was introduced to consumers in the late 90s, it included a security feature called Wired Equivalent Privacy, or WEP. There was, however, a fundamental flaw in WEP that allowed hackers to easily hack wireless networks. So if you secure your wireless router with the WEP protocol (even today, several years later), a hacker can break into your wireless network in less than 2 minutes using only a modern laptop and some freely available software… and start downloading illegal music, warez or kiddie porn.
WEP was so bad, in fact, that a new protocol, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) was quickly rolled out. WPA is much more secure than WEP. In fact, many thought that WPA would last as long as current 802.11b and 802.11g hardware. Sadly, this didn’t happen. A couple of researchers have found a hack that renders WPA almost as pointless as WEP.
Sort of. The hack actually affects the Temporary Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) that’s used with WPA. And here’s the good news: most routers will let you switch between WAP-TKIP and WAP-AES encryption. So to make your home network secure again, just log in to your router and change the encryption settings from TKIP to AES and you should be aces. Even better: this hack was only just announced this week, so if you can’t get around to changing your settings for a few days… you should be OK.
Read more about the “AES workaround” here.