There are more Wi-Fi devices[1] in active use around the world—roughly 9 billion—than there are human beings. That ubiquity makes protecting Wi-Fi from hackers[2] one of the most important tasks in cybersecurity. Which is why the arrival of next-generation wireless security protocol WPA3 deserves your attention: Not only is it going to keep Wi-Fi connections safer, but also it will help save you from your own security shortcomings.

It’ll take time before you can enjoy the full benefits of WPA3; the Wi-Fi Alliance, a trade group that oversees the standard, is releasing full details today but doesn’t expect broad implementation until late 2019 at the earliest. In the course that WPA3 charts for Wi-Fi, though, security experts see critical, long-overdue improvements to a technology you use more than almost any other.

“If you ask virtually any security person, they’ll say don’t use Wi-Fi, or if you do, immediately throw a VPN connection on top of it,” says Bob Rudis, chief data officer at security firm Rapid 7. “Now, Wi-Fi becomes something where we can say hey, if the place you’re going to uses WPA3 and your device uses WPA3, you can pretty much use Wi-Fi in that location.”

Password Protections

Start with how WPA3 will protect you at home. Specifically, it’ll mitigate the damage that might stem from your lazy passwords[3].

A fundamental weakness of WPA2, the current wireless security protocol that dates back to 2004, is that it lets hackers deploy a so-called offline dictionary attack to guess your password. An attacker can take as many shots as they want at guessing your credentials without being on the same network, cycling through the entire dictionary—and beyond—in relatively short order.

'They’re not trying to hide the details of the system.'

Joshua

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