WEP

WEP

Wired Equivalent Privacy. Encrypts data at one end of a wireless link and decrypts it at the other end using either 64 or 128bit keys. WEP is used to secure wireless networks. WEP incurs a slight hit on network speed (because of the encryption) but for most applications this is will not be noticeable.

WEP has known weaknesses which mean that hackers can break the wireless security. For this reason WPA is generally used in preference to WAP as WPA provides better encryption than WEP.

For more information see:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa503279.aspx - WEP, Network Devices and Protocols, an article from Microsoft.
• http://everything.explained.at/Wired_Equivalent_Privacy - WEP Explained.