Wi-Fi Alliance Launches WPA3 Security Standard (securityweek.com)

wiredmikey writes: The Wi-Fi Alliance, the organization responsible for maintaining Wi-Fi technology, announced the launch of the WPA3 security standard. The latest version of the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol brings significant improvements in terms of authentication and data protection.

WPA3 has two modes of operation: Personal and Enterprise. WPA3-Personal's key features include enhanced protection against offline dictionary attacks and password guessing attempts. WPA3-Enterprise provides 192-bit encryption for extra security, improved network resiliency, and greater consistency when it comes to the deployment of cryptographic tools.

Comments

Opportunistic Wireless Encryption

[crow]

Most of this is incremental security improvements, as for most users, WPA2 is still sufficiently secure. However, the big deal here is the opportunistic encryption that will encrypt connections that don't require authentication. That's a big deal.

I like to leave my WiFi open for guests, but I have to set up a separate network in order to keep my regular use encrypted. Once everything supports opportunistic encryption, I can just have one network. That's not particularly important.

Where this matters is public WiFi. Many stores have free WiFi with no password. Often they have a login after you connect (annoying, but a separate issue), but there is no encryption on the link. Anyone who knows what they're doing can see every packet you send. When this technology becomes widespread, it will become a bit harder for evesdroppers.

Of course, using public WiFi, you should be using end-to-end encryption on anything important. This is pretty much standard these days for most things, but too often something slips through.