The Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) standard is aimed at business customers who want strong security, the WFA said this week.
Wi-Fi, also known as 802.11b, is a technology that allows the creation of wireless networks with a radius of around 300 feet. It has started to catch on for home use, and some companies have begun installing the networks in public places such as airports.
A central feature of the system is that laptops and personal digital assistants configured for the technology can able to automatically detect when their owners enter a Wi-Fi "hot spot" and log on to the Internet.
But business users remain cautious about the technology out of worries about security breaches. Because of the way the technology works, it is possible for people to tap into a network without the knowledge or permission of the person who set it up.
WPA will replace the existing Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) standard. That security technology uses fixed keys, which can be figured out by readily available software, allowing people to tap into a network.
The WPA standard uses Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), which generates new keys for every 10K of data transmitted over the network, making it more difficult to access.
"Enterprises, small businesses and home users need a stronger standards-based security solution than WEP, and they need it now," Dennis Eaton, the alliance's chairman, said in a release.
The WPA standard is designed to work with existing Wi-Fi products and should first appear in Wi-Fi certified products in the first quarter of 2003. Several companies, including Intersil, Funk Software and Atmel, have already announced their support for the new standard.
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