First Wi-Fi products get security certificate

The Wi-Fi Alliance got its next certification programme off to a flying start, issuing WPA2 badges to a bunch of products that comply with the 802.11i security specification.

The Alliance is readying other programmes for quality of service and the 802.11n fast Wi-Fi standard due next year.

The WPA2 certified products include generic designs from Atheros Communications and Broadcom, so customers can expect to buy products with the badges on by the end of the month, and for many others WPA2 will only mean a software upgrade, said Gordon Lindsay, Broadcom's European wireless product manager.

WPA2 is the follow up to the Alliance's interim security plan, WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), which was brought out in March 2003, because the then-current WEP security was not adequate and the replacement, 802.11i, too far off. Now, with the 802.11i standard ratified by the IEEE, the Alliance has launched a branding programme under the WPA2 banner.

The biggest addition in WPA2/802.11i is AES, a heavy duty encryption standard specified by the US government, which 2003 WLan equipment did not have the processing power to handle.

Despite fears that users may have to scrap existing Wi-Fi hardware, many will be pleasantly surprised to find that a software upgrade will suffice, said Lindsay. "We have the hardware for AES in all our existing chips," he said. "It's literally a software upgrade."

WPA2 devices will be backward compatible with WPA systems, but there will be a couple of steps on the upgrade path.