Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Wi-Fi router/access point settings

Confusion arises when looking at older router (Linksys WRT54G) which has WPA only.

The wireless security setup page states:
“WPA Pre-Shared Key: There are two encryption options for WPA Pre-Shared Key, TKIP and AES. TKIP stands for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. TKIP utilizes a stronger encrytption method and incorporates Message Integrity Code (MIC) to provide protection against hackers. AES stands for Advanced Encryption System, which utilizes a symmetric 128-Bit block data encryption.” (No further information is given.)
They certainly appear to be recommending TKIP over AES. This leads me to believe that the “AES” used by this router is different than the 256 bit AES-CCMP used by WPA2 capable routers.
CCMP: Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol
PSK: Pre Shared Key   home/small office.  No authentication server for "handshake".  Note the strength of the passphrase is extremely important, but it is NOT used to encrypt the traffic.