What are the primary limitations of WEP?

WEP, which stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy, was one of the first security protocols designed to provide a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a level of security comparable to that of wired networks. However, it has been found to have significant security weaknesses, making it highly vulnerable to various types of attacks.

The protocol uses static keys for encryption, which means that if an attacker is able to capture enough traffic, they can easily decrypt the data by analyzing the patterns within the packets. Additionally, WEP relies on the RC4 encryption algorithm, which has known vulnerabilities that allow attackers to exploit weaknesses in the algorithm itself. As a result, tools and methodologies have been developed that can break WEP encryption relatively quickly, often within minutes, prompting security experts to recommend against its use in favor of more robust protocols like WPA and WPA2.

This recognition of its security flaws is why the identification of significant security weaknesses is the primary limitation of WEP. Other options, while they might touch upon aspects related to performance or cost, do not capture the essence of WEP's limitations in terms of securing wireless communications effectively.