Those who have followed the aforementioned TJX story know that the initial wireless breach occurred because WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) security was in place. WEP security goes all the way back to the original IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 standard (c. 1997). It’s broken. In fact, it’s not just broken. It’s broken, beaten, dead, and then beaten again posthumously. It’s also part of every single Wi-Fi product on the market, be it a, b, g, or n.

The actually problems with WEP are thus:
1. WEP encryption can be broken.
2. After you break WEP encryption, you can attack a network in two ways:
a. Use the broken WEP key to sniff data.
b. Use the broken WEP key to access the network.

WPA2 is a certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance for 802.11i-compliant products. The 802.11i amendment has a few security protocols that make it a strong replacement for WEP. All Wi-Fi-certified products since 2006 are required to support WPA2 as well.

WPA2 is structured a lot like WEP. When you used WEP (assuming nobody cracked your key), hackers were kept off and data were encrypted. When you use WPA2, both the network and the data are secured as well. Only this time you’re using AES-CCMP (Advanced Encryption Standard – Counter-Mode Cipher-Block-Chaining Message-Authentication-Code Protocol) encryption, which has no known flaws. That means no cracking, no sniffing and, most importantly, no network access for hackers.