WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)

• Only the frame body of data frames is encrypted using RC4.
• RC4 is a symmetric stream cipher that supports a variable length key.
• 802.11 uses 40 bit key + 24 bit IV (Initialization Vector)

The scheme is shown in the figure below-

It should be noted that only DATA portion of the frame is encrypted, rest of the frame is not. This can be seen below-

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