Yong Guan, in Managing Information Security (Second Edition), 2014 NFAT Software Other than encrypting communications, IEEE 802.11, like most other network protocols, does not offer any features that might thwart network traffic analysis, such as adding random lengths of padding to messages or sending additional messages with randomly generated data. More sophisticated analysis might be able to determine the operating systems in use based on the length of certain frames. Also, analyzing traffic patterns can aid in determining the content of communications for example, short bursts of activity might be caused by terminal emulation or instant messaging, whereas steady streams of activity might be generated by videoconferencing. Eavesdroppers might be able to gain information by monitoring and noting which parties communicate at particular times.

WEP is not the secure alternative you’re looking for.Ī possible threat against confidentiality is network traffic analysis. Ideally, larger key sizes translate to stronger protection, but the cryptographic technique used by WEP has known flaws that are not mitigated by longer keys. WEP also uses a 24-bit value known as an initialization vector (IV) as a seed value for initializing the cryptographic keystream. The standard for WEP specifies support for a 40-bit WEP key only however, many vendors offer nonstandard extensions to WEP that support key lengths of up to 128 or even 256 bits.

The WEP protocol attempts some form of confidentiality by using the RC4 stream cipher algorithm to encrypt wireless communications. Information Security Essentials for IT ManagersĪlbert Caballero, in Managing Information Security (Second Edition), 2014 Confidentiality

Network traffic analysis software