Enhancing RC4 algorithm for WEP protocol using fake character insertions and compression technique (FCICT)

The Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol has been proven to have several security weaknesses. In this paper, we propose an enhancement of the RC4 algorithm that is used in WEP. The mechanism known as the fake character insertion and compression technique (FCICT) consists of two parts. In the first part, characters are inserted subject to the satisfaction of a key and data dependent condition. The second part compresses the text cither by the standard Huffman compression algorithm, or by a simpler replacement technique using adjacent characters of the message. A performance analysis of the FCICT is done and the overhead caused due to this layer is presented.