The Wi-Fi security protocol WPA2 has been used more than 9 billion consumer-grade Wi-Fi devices around the world. This is more than the population of humans.
That ubiquity makes protecting Wi-Fi from hackers as one of the most important tasks in cybersecurity. 14 years after WPA2 launch in 2004, the Wi-Fi Alliance has certified products that support WPA3, with numerous manufacturers are already on board.
The WPA3 aims to make Wi-Fi connections safer, as well as saving users from their own security shortcomings.
This came after more than 500,000 routers around the world were breached in 2017 using the nefarious VPNFilter malware.
Read: Restarting Routers Can Stop The VPNFilter Malware, Said FBI
The advantages of WPA3 include the invulnerable from hackers attempting to guess passwords. There is also security provisions that enable "robust protection" when people use weak passwords.
"Let’s say that I’m trying to communicate with somebody, and you want to be able to eavesdrop on what we’re saying. In an offline attack, you can either passively stand there and capture an exchange, or maybe interact with me once. And then you can leave, you can go somewhere else, you can spin up a bunch of cloud computing services and you can try a brute-force dictionary attack without ever interacting with me again, until you figure out my password," explained Kevin Robinson, a Wi-Fi Alliance executive.
WPA3 also ditches WPA2's four-way handshake between clients and access points that is vulnerable to the notorious KRACK vulnerability. Instead, WPA3 uses the more secure Simultaneous Authentication of Equals handshake.
This enables WPA3-enabled devices to support forward secrecy, meaning that any traffic that came across before an outsider gained access will remain encrypted. This way, devices can have individualized data encryption, making them safer to use in public places and other open Wi-Fi networks.
When using WPA2, hackers could identify passwords as they're transmitted through a jumble of data in web traffic, by knowing the specifications of routers and how they transfer data between devices and servers. By intercepting data, hackers can also decrypt information shared between devices, as well as previously transmitted data.
WPA3 aims to protect people against these kinds of attacks.
Key capabilities of WPA3 include:
- WPA3-Personal: More resilient, password-based authentication even when users choose weak passwords. Using Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE), WPA3 has stronger protections for users against password guessing attempts by third-parties.
- WPA3-Enterprise: Offers the equivalent of 192-bit cryptographic strength, providing additional protections for networks transmitting sensitive data. This ensures a consistent combination of cryptographic tools are deployed across WPA3 networks.
The Wi-Fi Alliance is also releasing a protocol for both WPA2 and WPA3 devices that enables a QR code-based system for connecting devices to access points. This way, users just need to connect to the Wi-Fi network and scan the code.
Many companies like Cisco, HP, Broadcom, and Intel have voiced their support for the upgrade; Qualcomm has already started manufacturing chips for phones and computers supporting the next generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11ax, and WPA3.
