RSA Security and Hifn have announced a new technology patch for the Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol designed to encrypt communications transferred over standard 802.11 (AirPort) wireless networks, according to c|net. The current WEP implementation is flawed in that the encryption keys used to hide transferred data are too similar to each other and are thus relatively easy to crack. The patch to the existing WEP protocol, which allows users to encrypt each packet of data with a different key, has been approved by the governing body of IEEE and will reportedly be added as software upgrades by 802.11 device manufacturers.
