WEP
Short for Wired Equivalent
Privacy, a security protocol for wireless local area
networks (WLANs)
defined in the
802.11b
standard. WEP is designed to provide the same level of security as that
of a wired
LAN. LANs are inherently more secure than WLANs
because LANs are somewhat protected by the physicality's
of their structure, having some or all part of the network inside a
building that can be protected from unauthorized access. WLANs, which
are over radio waves, do not have the same physical structure and therefore
are more vulnerable to tampering. WEP aims to provide security by
encrypting
data over radio waves so that it is protected as it is transmitted from
one end point to another. However, it has been found that WEP is not
as secure as once believed. WEP is used at the two lowest layers of
the
OSI model - the data link and physical layers; it therefore does
not offer end-to-end security
