What does the Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 abbreviation WPA3 identify?

WPA3 identifies a Wi-Fi security standard designed to protect wireless networks and devices.

The Wi-Fi Alliance introduced WPA3 in 2018 as the successor to WPA2. Its major personal-network method, Simultaneous Authentication of Equals, improves protection against offline password-guessing attacks compared with the older preshared-key handshake.

WPA3 also includes stronger security options for enterprise networks and introduces features such as forward secrecy in appropriate modes. Devices and routers must support WPA3 for a network to use it; changing a router’s name alone does not upgrade its security.

WPA3 is not a frequency band, a Wi-Fi generation, or a replacement for the internet protocol suite. Some equipment supports transition modes so WPA3-capable devices can connect alongside older WPA2 devices, though using older compatibility can reduce the security benefit.