Security researchers crack TKIP layer of WPA

Security researchers Erik Tews and Martin Beck have found a way to break the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) key that is used by the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption standard. The researchers were able to trick a WPA router to send large amounts of data to the person cracking the code and with a "mathematical breakthrough," it is possible to crack TKIP without having to resort to a dictionary attack. To be clear, the team has not managed to crack the actual encryption keys used to secure data, so WPA remains secure at this junction. Indeed, there is no need to panic, since there is always WPA2, which looks as robust as ever. More details of this attack will be discussed at the PacSec conference in Tokyo next week.

For more on this story:
- check out this article from Network World

Related Article:
Advances in WPA2 solutions worth a look