WEP(Wired Equivalent Privacy) the most widely used for encryption is ironically the most weakest one. Security of WEP was compromised by FMS attack. Three men- Fluhrer, Mantin and Shamir found a weakness in the RC4 encryption and they proved that the encryption key can be recovered by observing few data packets that were transmitted through the wireless network.That vulnerability made it possible to completely break the encryption within few hours. But it never stopped there, every year cryptanalyst find out more and more vulnerability in WEP. The present scenario is even the strongest of the WEP keys could be hacked within 60 seconds. This makes networks implementing WEP more or less equivalent to an unencrypted network.
Due to all its weakness and incompetence to provide complete security , the WEP encryption was deprecated. But still the manufacturers create wireless products that has WEP encryption and in most of the products it is the default encryption used. It is very obvious that a person with not much knowledge about networks prefers to take the default setting and they finally end up implementing the WEP encryption algorithm. And by doing this, they are giving their neighbors, a complete access to their network
A wireless cracking program called Aircrack-ng enables even a person with no network knowledge to crack a WEP encrypted network.
Video Tutorial – Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdOrmyCBmrI&feature=player_embeddedVideo Tutorial – Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbYnKWNn3BQ&feature=player_embedded
