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February 12, 2004

WPA for Free under Windows 2000

By Glenn Fleishman

WSC releases free client for Windows 2000 that supports Wi-Fi Protected Access’s pre-shared key mode: Given that Microsoft hasn’t offered what Wireless Security Corporation estimates is 20 percent of all Windows users worldwide access to the robust WPA encryption protocol, they’ve released their own client for free. Their client offers just WPA-PSK (pre-shared key), which is the mode used in homes and small offices without back-end authentication servers — but it’s still much, much better than plain old WEP, the original broken encryption method for Wi-Fi.

WSC offers hosted 802.1X for Windows XP and 2000. This move of releasing a free WPA-PSK client is quite generous, as it provides them only some publicity, and doesn’t lock anyone into their service offering, as WPA-PSK can be used with any WPA-supporting access point.

(WSC’s press release is a model of a good technical release: it explains the problem reasonably, without hype, and with accurate details that educate the reader. It presents its solution fairly, as well.)

Update: In April 2005, WSC updated this offering to support Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP. Since this page is so popular in the archives, it seemed worthwhile to point to their new software, which can be downloaded and used at no cost for WPA Personal (WPA-PSK).

Posted by Glennf at February 12, 2004 7:01 AM

Categories: Security

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