What is Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key?
You have heard about this term Wi-Fi pre-shared key a lot these days. People are confused about what is this additional security. Here we are, we will tell you that what this Wi-Fi pre-shared key is?
What is Wi-Fi Pre-Shared Key?
Wi-Fi pre-shared key is also known as WPA-PSK. It is a system used to authenticate the users on a wireless local area network. This technique is basically for home local area network users in telecom companies. This WPA-PSK may also be called WPA2-PSK or WPA personal.
What does WPA-PSK do?
WPA-PSK or network shared key is basically used in cybersecurity. In WPA, the data is encrypted and then transmitted at the other end. A user password is generated that is used on either side during transmission. WPA is used with TKIP protocol that uses 128-bit encryption. Also, AES standards are used in it for security purpose. WPA-PSK does not require any centralized servers or different user-driven inputs like commercial WPA.
WEP Vs WAP
WAP is a wireless application protocol, and WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Protection. Both these protocols use network shared keys. But WEP is considered weaker than WAP, so many of the telecom companies have shifted from WEP to WPA as it provides stronger authentication.
What Is the Pre-Shared Phenomenon?
The WPA uses pre-shared key phenomenon now, let us explain how this phenomenon works. The concept of a pre-shared key goes back to primitive non-digital cryptography in prior centuries. The idea is that users utilized an initial secure channel to deliver a key and then subsequently, at a future time, sent secondary transmissions where encryption depended on that initial key.
After that, the sender could send a set of numbers corresponding to an equidistant sequence matching the letters in the book. Without the underlying book, the pre-shared key, the set of numbers would defy analysis or code-breaking. The code was not a cipher, then, but a reference to the pre-shared key itself.
So this was all with the pre-shared key. For further information, we would like to tell you that the first WPA standard became available in 2003. A subsequent standard, WPA2, was introduced the next year. A new WPA3 standard became available in 2018.
