WPA could be implemented through firmware upgrades on wireless network interface cards designed for WEP that began shipping as far back as 1999. The Wi-Fi Alliance intended WPA as an intermediate measure to take the place of WEP pending the availability of the full IEEE 802.11i standard. Īs of 2023, most computers that connect to a wireless network have support for using WPA, WPA2, or WPA3. In January 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced the release of WPA3, which has several security improvements over WPA2. The Wi-Fi Alliance intended it as an intermediate measure in anticipation of the availability of the more secure and complex WPA2, which became available in 2004 and is a common shorthand for the full IEEE 802.11i (or IEEE 802.11i-2004) standard. WPA (sometimes referred to as the TKIP standard) became available in 2003.
The Alliance defined these in response to serious weaknesses researchers had found in the previous system, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). Wi-Fi Protected Access ( WPA), Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 ( WPA2), and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 ( WPA3) are the three security certification programs developed after 2000 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks. Security protocol for wireless computer networks
