Several WiFi products obtained official WPA2 certification by the WiFi Alliance today. WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2), is based upon the 802.11i amendment to the 802.11 standard, which was ratified on July 29, 2004. The primary difference between WPA and WPA2 is that WPA2 uses a more advanced encryption technique called AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), allowing for compliance with FIPS140-2 government security requirements.
Guided by the Wi-Fi Alliance, WPA2 certification ensures that wireless LAN products are interoperable.
Broadcom, for example, announced that its AirForce wireless LAN access point and client designs were among the first products to be Wi-Fi CERTIFIED for WPA2.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has also chosen Broadcom’s popular IEEE 802.11a/g access point reference design (the BCM94712P) and 802.11g CardBus reference design (the BCM94306M) to be used in the certification process for other Wi-Fi products in the WPA2 test environment.
“Broadcom is proud to be among the first vendors to have its products certified for WPA2, and will continue to provide equipment manufacturers with the latest building blocks to meet the security requirements of all Wi-Fi customers,” said David Cohen, Senior Marketing Manager for Broadcom’s Home & Wireless Networking Business Unit.
WPA2 is the next-generation Wi-Fi security standard, combining the most powerful authentication and encryption techniques to protect wireless networks from unauthorized use. Based upon the recently-ratified IEEE 802.11i standard, WPA2 adds the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to the original WPA specification. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) advocates the use of AES security to protect sensitive digital information on government networks.
“Those Wi-Fi IC vendors who have already been including hardware-based AES implementations in their designs will be able to provide firmware upgrades to existing customers to implement WPA2 without a performance hit,” says Phil Solis, wireless analyst from ABI Research.
Products obtaining WPA2 certification on September 1, 2004 include:
Atheros Communications Inc. -- Atheros AR5002AP-2X Concurrent 802.11a and 802.11b/g Dual-band Access Point -- Atheros AR5002X Universal 802.11a/b/g Wireless Network Adapter Broadcom Corporation -- Broadcom AirForce(TM) 802.11a/g CardBus Reference Design, BCM94309CB -- Broadcom AirForce(TM) 802.11a/g Access Point Reference Design, BCM94704-AGR Cisco Systems -- Cisco Aironet 1200 Series Access Point with integrated 802.11a and 802.11g radios Instant802 Networks -- Gateway 7001 Access Point Intel -- Intel® Pro/Wireless 2915 Network Connection Realtek -- Realtek RTL8185 and 8255 802.11a/g 54M WLAN NIC / RTL8185 and 8255-NIC
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