Understanding mainstream wireless encryption methodsFirst, let's take a look at the mainstream wireless encryption methods, that is, the WEP, WPA, and WPA2 encryption methods that often appear in the security settings of wireless routers. WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy, Equivalent Wired confidentiality ). According to the name, WEP seems to be a secure encryption protocol for wired networks, but this is not the case. The WEP standard was created in the early stages of wireless networks. Its security technology originated from the RSA Data Encryption technology named RC4 and is a necessary security protection layer for WLAN. Currently, 64-bit WEP encryption and 128-bit WEP encryption are common. WPA (WiFi Protected Access, Wi-Fi network security Access ). The WPA protocol is a system that protects the security of wireless networks (WiFi). It is generated based on the previous generation of Wired Equivalent encryption (WEP) and solves the defects of the former WEP, it uses the TKIP (temporary Key Integrity) Protocol and is an excessive solution in the IEEE 802.11i standard. WPA provides two authentication modes: 802.1x authentication (for enterprise users) and pre-shared key PSK authentication (for individual users ), so we only test WPA-PSK encryption. WPA2, an upgraded version of WPA encryption. It is an IEEE 802.11i standard authentication form verified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. WPA2 implements the mandatory element of 802.11i, in particular, the Michael algorithm is replaced by the fully secure CCMP (full code protocol for block Chain messages in counter mode) message authentication code, and the RC4 encryption algorithm is also replaced by AES (Advanced Encryption. Like WPA encryption, WPA2 also has two authentication modes to choose from, so we also test WPA2-PSK encryption for individual users. Test Platform and test method we will select the most common TP-Link M wireless route for the actual rate test of wireless encryption. Test Platform: Client: ASUS z99h21 notebook + M external wireless Nic; server: IBM T61 notebook. Test software: NetIQ Chariot v5.4; Endpoint6.0 test content: We will test the download rate of a single pair for a TP-Link M wireless route using different encryption methods, use the most intuitive data to tell you the impact of wireless encryption on the wireless transmission rate. The reason for the significant decrease in the speed after 11n encryption is given after all tests are completed.Test result of TP-Link M wireless route under unencrypted ConditionsLet's take a look at the single pair downlink test results of the M wireless router under non-encrypted conditions. We can see that, under unencrypted conditions, its single pair downlink test result reaches 58.177 Mbps, and the test curve is relatively stable. Select WEP encryption to go to the Web configuration interface of the wireless router, and select WEP as the security encryption mode. We can see that after selecting the WEP encryption method, the actual test result of the M wireless router is greatly reduced from 58Mbps to 19 Mbps, And the decline is indeed very obvious. Is this the cost of encryption? Take a look at the next test. When introducing the WPA/WPA2 encryption method, we mentioned the TKIP (temporary Key Integrity) encryption algorithm and the AES (Advanced Encryption) encryption algorithm. At present, both WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK encryption methods support TKIP and AES encryption algorithm, we first select TKIP encryption algorithm, look at the two encryption methods under the actual wireless transmission capacity of M wireless router.Select TKIP Encryption Algorithm for WPA-PSK EncryptionThrough actual tests, we can see that the test results under the two encryption conditions are very close, both at around 20 Mbps, and there is still a very significant gap between the actual test results of the 58 Mbps under the non-encryption conditions. Why? Is the impact of wireless encryption on wireless transmission so great? After reading the last test, these questions will have the final answer. Select the actual test result of the AES encryption algorithm. Now we select the AES encryption algorithm to see if the actual wireless transmission capability of the M wireless router varies under the two encryption methods.WPA-PSK encryption selection AES Encryption AlgorithmWe are pleasantly surprised to find that the test scores under both encryption conditions are close to 50 Mbps, and the gap has become very small compared to 58 Mbps under non-encryption conditions. So why does the transmission rate of the 11n wireless network change so much after different encryption methods (or encryption algorithms) are adopted?Answer now. For you:In the three tests, the main reason for such a huge change in the transmission rate of wireless networks is that the IEEE 802.11n standard does not support the high throughput of unicast passwords using WEP encryption (or TKIP encryption algorithm. If you select the TKIP Algorithm for WEP encryption or WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK encryption, the wireless transmission rate will automatically fall to 11g level (theoretical value 54 Mbps, actual test score about 20 Mbps ). That is to say, if the user is using 11n wireless products, then the wireless encryption method can only select WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK AES algorithm encryption, otherwise the wireless transmission rate will automatically decrease.Conclusion: Please select WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK AES encryption for wireless encryptionThrough the above introduction, we can see that as long as you select the wireless encryption method, the impact of wireless encryption on the wireless transmission rate is only about 15%, users only need a small performance loss to get a safer wireless network. Therefore, if you are a 11n wireless user, please select WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK AES algorithm encryption for your wireless network; and if you are a 11g old user, select at least WEP wireless encryption.