Wireless devices, including laptop computers and PDAs that are widely used to access company networks, rely on a protocol that has "major security flaws" and are vulnerable to hackers using equipment they can obtain easily, a research group at the University . . .
Wireless devices, including laptop computers and PDAs that are widely used to access company networks, rely on a protocol that has "major security flaws" and are vulnerable to hackers using equipment they can obtain easily, a research group at the University of California at Berkeley has concluded.

The culprit is the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol used in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 international standard for wireless LAN communications. It has flaws that "seriously undermine the security claims of the system," leaving it vulnerable to attacks that decrypt traffic, researchers find. The research group intercepted wireless transmissions, modified transmissions, and accessed restricted networks in its examination.

The Internet Security, Applications, Authentication and Cryptography (ISAAC) researchers, a group in the university's computer science department, have published their findings. They say they hope IEEE will redesign the protocol, and that companies will design and implement networks with better security principles.

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