The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced the upcoming release of the Wi-Fi 6 industry certification program based on the IEEE 802.11ax standard in late 2019. Previous Wi-Fi generations include Wi-Fi 5 (IEEE 802.11ac) and Wi-Fi 4 (IEEE 802.11n).
Category Archives: Wi-Fi
Opera web browser includes free VPN
Opera is currently testing its free VPN service in its Opera for Android browser. Free VPN is currently available for the Windows and Mac desktop versions of Opera for extra privacy when browsing the web, and it is especially useful when connected to public Wi-Fi networks.
Wi-Fi Alliance announces Wi-Fi 6 designation and new wireless naming conventions
The Wi-Fi Alliance is now designating Wi-Fi 6 as the latest generation of Wi-Fi. This change was made in order to make IEEE 802.11 wireless computer networking standard names easier for consumers to understand.
The new standards are as follows:
- Wi-Fi 6 = 802.11ax standard support
- Wi-Fi 5 = 802.11ac standard support
- Wi-Fi 4 = 802.11n standard support
Wireless network standards prior to these will still use their current names.
Wi-Fi Alliance announces release of WPA3 security and Wi-Fi Easy Connect
The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced the release of the new WPA3 Wi-Fi security standard that will be made available soon in various connected devices. WPA3 will retain interoperability with WPA2 devices and is available as WPA3-Personal or WPA3-Enterprise.
Wi-Fi Easy Connect will also be released and it will make it even easier to connect devices to Wi-Fi networks.
Wi-Fi Alliance announces new WPA3 wireless security protocol
The tech industry group Wi-Fi Alliance announced the upcoming release of the WPA3 wireless security protocol on January 8th 2018. WPA3 is the future replacement of the WPA2 protocol which was shown to be vulnerable to the Krack attack security flaw in 2017.
Security vulnerability found in Wi-Fi WPA2 protocol
A security weakness named “Krack Attack” was found in the popular WPA2 protocol used for Wi-Fi access on computers, tablets and smartphones. This would allow a hacker to spy on data sent via Wi-Fi under these conditions:
- The website currently being used is not secured (no https:// used in web address)
- The hacker is in range and connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Microsoft stated that it issued a security update on October 10th 2017 to fix this issue and should have been installed as part of standard Windows Updates .
The CERT Vulnerability Notes Database has logged this issue as Vulnerability Note VU#228519.
More information can be found at www.krackattacks.com.