Various wireless security protocols were developed to protect home and office wireless networks. These wireless security protocols include WEP, WPA, WPA2, and WPA3, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. WPA stands for "Wi-Fi Protected Access". It supersedes the earlier security standard WEP "Wired Equivalent Privacy" it was the first form of authentication used with Wi-Fi, since 1999. The aim of this key was to make wireless networks such as Wi-Fi as safe as wired communications. Unfortunately, this form of Wi-Fi network security did not live up to its name because it was soon hacked, and now there are many open source applications that can easily break into it in a matter of seconds. In terms of its operation, the Wi-Fi WEP key uses a clear text message sent from the client. This is then encrypted and returned using a pre-shared key. In order to provide a workable improvement to the flawed WEP system, the WPA access methodology was devised and introduced in 2003 with the 802.11i wireless standard. The scheme was developed under the auspices of the Wi-Fi Alliance to replace the WEP protocol.

WPA provides better encryption and authentication mechanism to secure wireless networks than WEP. It uses TKIP "Temporal Key Integrity Protocol" and AES "Advanced Encryption Standard" algorithms to randomize the secret key for cryptographic activities. This provides a significantly improved level of security.

A year later, in 2004, WiFi Protected Access 2 became available. WPA2 has stronger security and is easier to configure than the prior options. As we know WPA uses the TKIP algorithm. Security researchers had found many security holes and vulnerabilities in the TKIP algorithm. Hence, the WPA2 standard came to overcome all these security issues. It is based on Counter Mode Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol (CCMP). While the client is connecting to a wi-fi network by using this security standard, it creates a unique secret key every time for encryption and decryption of data.

WPA3 the next-generation replacement for WPA2 was introduced by Wi-Fi Alliance in 2018. This new version will have, “new features to simplify WiFi security, enable more robust authentication, and deliver increased cryptographic strength for highly sensitive data markets.” WPA3 is still being implemented so WPA3-certified hardware isn’t an available option for most wifi devices.