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Erik Tews

German graduate students Erik Tews and Martin Beck discovered a limited method to crack WPA, or more specifically, to crack the TKIP component of WPA.  Their paper describes the attack and their tkiptun-ng tool carries out the attack.  

WPA relies upon the old RC4 encryption algorithm from the infamous WEP protocol and uses TKIP as a “band-aid” to strengthen WEP encryption.  WPA was intended as a way to secure existing WEP equipment without using a computationally intensive algorithm.  This approach enabled existing hardware (access points and clients) to support WPA with a simple software upgrade. Continue reading WPA Hack