What type of security framework does WPA2 utilize?

WPA2, which stands for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2, utilizes both TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) as its security frameworks. The significance of this lies in the fact that WPA2 was developed to enhance wireless network security beyond what was offered by its predecessor, WPA, which primarily used TKIP.

TKIP was designed to provide a significant upgrade in security by dynamically changing encryption keys for each data packet, thus protecting against various attacks on the wireless network. However, TKIP is now considered legacy technology, while AES is a more modern and secure encryption standard. WPA2 mandates the use of AES for encryption in its CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol) implementation, which provides stronger security and performance.

The combination of TKIP and AES ensures that WPA2 can accommodate different devices and provide backward compatibility while also offering stronger protection against unauthorized access and other security threats in network communications. This functionality makes it the go-to standard for securing wireless networks as of the data cutoff in October 2023.