In the new age where the WiFi is extending its scope and networks, many other security technologies have been developed and continue to be developed. Security is a constant challenge, and there are no of companies coming fourth with its solutions.

Access Point

There are a variety of proprietary third-party security solutions that effectively "ride on top of" a standard WiFi transmission and provide encryption, firewall and authentication services. Many WiFi manufacturers have also developed proprietary encryption technologies that greatly enhance basic WiFi security.

Technologies

Encryption techniques use special technologies to scramble transmissions on one end and then unscramble them on the other. Other techniques use special keys or codes that enable the computers to talk to each other: the sender's computer transmits a key or code to the receiving computer, and if the keys match, the sender is allowed into the system. The WiFi Alliance, the IEEE 802.11 standards committee and many WiFi members are working to develop new security standards such as 802.11i and 802.1x. These new security standards will use advanced encryption technologies such as AES and TKIP, as well as secure key-distribution methods.

Hackers can break encryption codes by intercepting and analyzing large amounts of data, but breaking codes takes time. By automatically "changing" the encryption keys every five minutes or so, the WiFi network is already using a new code by the time a hacker has managed to intercept and crack the old one.