Information, Computer and Network Security Terms Glossary and Dictionary

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a security protocol, specified in the IEEE Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) standard, 802.11b, that is designed to provide a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a level of security and privacy comparable to what is usually expected of a wired LAN. WEP is based on a security scheme called RC4 that utilizes a combination of secret user keys and system-generated values. The original implementations of WEP supported so-called 40-bit encryption, having a key length of 40 bits and 24 additional bits of system-generated data (64 bits total). Research has shown that 40-bit WEP encryption is too easy to be decoded, and consequently product vendors today employ 128-bit encryption (having a key length of 104 bits, not 128 bits) or better.

Related Terms

WEP: Wired Equivalent Privacy