Here’s a quick tip.
Most Wi-Fi devices these days will support the latest wireless security protocols such as WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and WPA2. In particular, 802.11n devices will require that you use WPA2 in order to obtain faster speeds otherwise you get knocked back down to 54Mbps tops. However, WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is still kicking around for legacy devices that were not powerful enough to handle WPA or WPA2. In the computer industry, backwards compatibility is always a driving force but it can often come at the expense of performance and/or security.
If ever you have the option you should use the following as your order or preference of Wi-Fi security protocols:
- WPA2
- WPA + WPA2
- WPA
- WEP
- No security
Whilst WEP will prevent the casual snoopers and moochers from piggybacking off your Wi-Fi it won’t stop people who know what they are doing. WPA and WPA2 remain vastly more secure with WPA2 using the superior AES encryption standard while plain WPA uses the TKIP protocol (also used by WEP and found to be weak when used incorrectly). Fundamentally, at its core, WEP is equivalent to no security these days and it’s not worth risking the protection of your data by using it.
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