The access point responds to the request with a clear-text challenge.Ĭ. The client sends an authentication request to the access point.ī. Shared Key authentication: In this authentication mechanism as shown in figure 1, the WEP key is used for authentication in a four-step handshake process:Ī.

Any client can authenticate with the access point.Ģ. Open System authentication: In this case, the WLAN client need not provide its credentials to the access point during authentication. Open System authentication and Shared Key authentication are the two methods of authentication used in WEP.ġ. This algorithm is based on the RC4 stream cipher and CRC checksum mechanism to provide confidentiality and integrity. Figure 1: Shared key authentication mechanism She provides him with the basic details of the two algorithms used in a majority of wireless networks: WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA/WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access). Eve investigates the situation and explains how wireless protocols function. He contacts Eve, a security analyst, for help. This continuous mischief irritates him and he has no idea why this is happening. After a few such compromises, he changes his Wi-Fi passwords but the attacks continue. He is really annoyed with the repeated unauthentication of legitimate users from the Wi-Fi network. He has his network configured over the WEP protocol with simple dictionary based passwords like YOUCANTGUESS. Bobs start-up company, XYZ Pvt Ltd, has a few wireless access points.

How to use aircrack on mac