AES vs TKIP for Wireless Encryption

[sam007]

hi,
I've got Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router,it gives the option for TKIP or AES.Which offers better security- and are there any trade-offs?

[Snake08]

Linksys WRT54GS v2.0 stats show that AES has 0 overhead where TKIP and WEP both take a toll. This would be because WEP and TKIP are software driven and AES is hardware driven. Also AES is said to be more secure but TKIP is also very secure.

[Shen]

Ideally, you should use WPA2 with AES. If you cannot get this to work, a satisfactory alternative is WPA with TKIP. WEP is no longer recommended.

The option of WPA2 with "TKIP or AES" allows you to run a mixed system: Those devices that can do WPA2 with AES will use that system, less advanced devices (such as PDA's) that can only do WPA will do WPA with TKIP.

If you are having trouble with WPA2 you should note the following:then make sure you have the latest driver for your wireless adapter.

[Zachary]

TKIP stands for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. It is basically a patch for the weakness found in WEP. The problem with the original WEP is that an attacker could recover your key after observing a relatively small amount of your traffic. TKIP addresses that problem by automatically negotiating a new key every few minutes -- effectively never giving an attacker enough data to break a key. Both WEP and WPA-TKIP use the RC4 stream cipher.

AES stands for Advanced Encryption Standard and is a totally separate cipher system. It is a 128-bit, 192-bit, or 256-bit block cipher and is considered the gold standard of encryption systems today. AES takes more computing power to run so small devices like Nintendo DS don’t have it, but is the most secure option you can pick for your wireless network.

Of the two I would suggest AES. Not only for security reasons but also for performance reasons. Whenever you enable security on a wireless network you take some kind of performance hit (security requires extra bandwidth and processing time).

[Spyrus]

AES and RC4 are both encyption ciphers. They work differently in that AES is a block cipher while RC4 is a stream cipher. TKIP isn't a cipher like the other 2, but rather a protocol for implementing the RC4 cipher, similar to how WEP is an encryption implementation (that also uses RC4). However TKIP uses RC4 in a different way than WEP does.

[Steve123]

EAP allows for much more detailed user-based authentication to happen as part of the log-in process. The extra steps add to the levels of security that you have surrounding your wireless network, as well. EAP-PSK involves the use of a pre-shared key. There are obvious choices involved regarding which flavor of EAP you use and the security benefits therein.

AES, in general, is an encryption method that can both be achieved in hardware or in software, which is part of what makes it well-liked.

In general, you're looking at two different things when asking which is better between AES and TKIP. TKIP-MIC versus AES-CCMP is really the more detailed question there, and, quite simply, the AES-CCMP gives you better security and has more options available to protect yourself.