In addition, many homeowners have added wireless Internet access in their homes for the flexibility for themselves and their children. While driving through most neighborhoods it is not uncommon to have 802.11 wireless-enabled PDAs or cell phones dinging and bleeping to signal their owners that wireless is nearby.

Unlike its wired counterpart, 802.11 wireless is considered to be inherently less secure. So most early wireless routers came with WEP. Developed in the 1990's, WEP is short for Wired Equivalency Privacy and it is a security protocol for many Wi-Fi networks. It wasn't long after its introduction that rumors arose that WEP was easy to crack. Shortly thereafter at security conferences worldwide these cracks were successfully demonstrated. Today there are many easily downloadable WEP hack and crack programs that make accessing a WEP secured wireless network accessible in just a few minutes.

In an effort to offer additional security to wireless networks, wireless router manufacturers began including WPA and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access). Supposedly WPA and WPA2 certified wireless routers were impermeable to hackers.

However, over the last week the mainstream media has reported that two researchers, Erik Tews and Martin Beck, have found a way to crack WPA in only 15 minutes. There was mayhem in the technology community. Those that thought they were secure with WPA or WPA2 were now very concerned. 

When you peel back the onion of Tews' and Beck's research, several truths come to light. The conclusion is this panic was unnecessary and unwarranted. The bottom line is this WPA crack is not a major concern at this point and can be easily rectified.

First: The crack will only work on certain types of wireless routers. For the crack to be possible to attempt, your router must support QOS (quality of service). Many home and small business wireless routers do not support QOS. However, if your router does, simply disable it. Unless you are running Voice over IP through your wireless router, you typically would not be using QOS anyway.

Second: The crack revolves around TKIP. TKIP stands for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol and is an encryption protocol included as part of the IEEE 802.11i standard for wireless LANs. In most cases, TKIP can be disabled or an alternate protocol can be selected thereby making the crack completely useless against your wireless router.

The bottom line is this: If you disable QOS and TKIP this supposed WPA crack should be of no concern to you or your wireless security.

If you or your organization have not yet benefitted from the expertise of the SNBS staff, please take your concerns to Ken at 717-757-6999 or 800-745-8233, or send him an email by using the form below. Along with the many technical services they offer, SNBS provides Internet and website consulting services.

IT STAFF PROVIDES COMMUNITY SERVICE Our Business Solution folks do more than work with machines and software - they work with people, too. Check out two of their latest Community Service adventures in these past articles: SN's Technology Professionals Plug into Katrina Restoration Effort (January 23, 2008 issue) SN Volunteers assist with Convoy of Hope (July 23, 2008 issue)