I. Define the concept of Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and how it applies to information security systems and cryptography.
• WEP was an early attempt to provide security with the 8002.11 network protocol.
• It is now considered too cryptographically weak to provide any meaningful protection from eavesdropping.
• An intruder who collects enough data can threaten a WEP network in just a few minutes by decrypting or altering the data being transmitted, or by forging the WEP key to gain unauthorized access to the network.
• WEP also lacks a means of validating user credentials to ensure only those who should be on the network are allowed to access it.
II. Compare and critique the reasons why WEP is too weak for use in most network settings.