Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

WLANs that adhere to the WiFi standard have a built-in security mechanism called

WEP, an encryption protocol. When WLAN equipment is bought, WEP encryption is

often turned off by default. In order to be effective, this security mechanism should be

turned on. Originally, WEP encryption used a 40-bit or 64-bit encryption key and later

a 128-bit key to increase security. All access devices must, however, be set to use the

same encryption key in order to communicate. Using encryption will slow down the data

transfer rate by up to 30 percent because it takes up some of the available bandwidth.