WEP stands for wired equivalent privacy. WEP is an algorithm that implements security features on IEEE 802.11 wireless networks.
WEP was introduced in 1999 to provide confidentiality and security to wireless networks. WEP security is available in all routers, access points, and wireless network devices. WEP uses RC4 Stream cipher for implementing confidentiality and checksum CRC 32 for the integrity of data packets.
WEP uses two methods of authentication.
• Shared key authentication
• Open system authentication.
WEP is relatively less secure than WAP due to static authentication keys and short initialization vectors and had been replaced by WAP or WAP2 as a standard security protocol for IEEE.
WEP encryption is also more vulnerable and can be easily cracked by attackers due to its short length and obsolete security checks.