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D-Link DWA-172 User Manual
Section 4 - Wireless Security
Wireless Security
This section will show you the different levels of security you can use to protect your data from intruders. The
DWA-172 offers the following types of security:
• WPA2-PSK (Pre-Shared Key) • WPA-PSK (Pre-Shared Key)
What is WPA?
WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, is a Wi-Fi standard that was designed to improve the security features of WEP (Wired Equivalent
Privacy).
The 2 major improvements over WEP:
• Improved data encryption through the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). TKIP scrambles the keys using a
hashing algorithm and, by adding an integrity-checking feature, ensures that the keys haven’t been tampered
with. WPA2 is based on 802.11i and uses Advanced Encryption Standard instead of TKIP.
• User authentication, which is generally missing in WEP, through the extensible authentication protocol (EAP).
WEP regulates access to a wireless network based on a computer’s hardware-specific MAC address, which is
relatively simple to be sniffed out and stolen. EAP is built on a more secure public-key encryption system to
ensure that only authorized network users can access the network.
WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK uses a passphrase or key to authenticate your wireless connection. The key is an alpha-numeric password
between 8 and 63 characters long. The password can include symbols (!?*&_) and spaces. This key must be the exact same key
entered on your wireless router or access point.
