WEP is wide open in security
The 802.11b standard includes a provision for encryption called WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). Depending on the manufacturer and the model of the NIC card and access point, there are two levels of WEP commonly available – one based on a 40-bit encryption key and 24-bit Initialization Vector (also called 64-bit encryption and generally considered insecure) and a 104-bit key plus the 24-bit IV (so called 128 bit encryption.) There has been a lot of “buzz” in the computer and technology press over the last several weeks about the basic insecurity of WEP. Recently, Scott Fluhrer, Itsik Mantin and Adi Shamir published a paper titled “Weakness in the Key Scheduling Algorithm of RC4″. This paper outlined a method for pulling up the master WEP key that would allow a hacker to pose as a legitimate user of the network.