Networking / Beginners

CCMP/AES

CCMP is an awkward mouthful of an acronym that stands for Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication. CCMP provides authentication, confidentiality, and integrity checking services to any cryptographic system in which it is used. Under the hood of CCMP is the AES algorithm.

Let's try to break down CCMP into its individual parts to simplify and explain it. Recall that counter mode (CM) is one of the modes in which block ciphers can operate. You might also recall the cipher-block chaining (CBC) mode, another popular mode for block ciphers. This leaves us with the Message Authentication Code component of the name. We haven't talked about this yet so I'll briefly introduce it and its associated concepts next.

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In this tutorial:

  1. Securing Wireless Networks
  2. Security Background
  3. Security Services
  4. Cryptographic Concepts and Terms
  5. Encryption and Decryption
  6. Keyspace
  7. Exclusive OR (XOR)
  8. Algorithm
  9. Asymmetric Encryption Algorithms
  10. Public-Private Key Cryptography
  11. Cipher
  12. Concealment Ciphers vs. Running Key Ciphers
  13. Stream Ciphers vs. Block Ciphers
  14. Cipher Examples
  15. Cipher Implementations
  16. Wi-Fi Protected Access
  17. TKIP/WPA
  18. Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2)
  19. CCMP/AES
  20. Hash Functions
  21. EAP
  22. EAP Entities
  23. EAP Grammar
  24. EAP Types
  25. EAP-TTLS
  26. EAP-PSK
  27. EAP-SIM
  28. EAP-AKA
  29. IEEE 802.11i
  30. Four-Way Handshake
  31. IEEE 802.11i Considerations