Two Japanese scientists have created a method that breaks the encryption technology Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) in minutes, which may endanger routers that use the popular security tool.

Toshihiro Ohigashi, Hiroshima University, and Masakaty Morii, Kobe University, managed the feat two weeks ago, in the event Joint Workshop on Information Security in Taiwan.

More details will be presented at conference in Japan, which should happen on September 24.

Who makes the attack can read traffic encrypted in WPA, which circulates in a network. Security experts had warned of this possibility in November last year , but the Japanese took the theory to practice and showed that the security breach can occur in minutes.

The encryption systems in wireless routers have a long history of problems. The system WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), launched in 1997, was broken a few years later and today is considered completely unsafe.

Exists, however, alternative WPA. It is WPA 2, which has existed since March 2006. "Despite the safer alternative, there is still a large installed base around the world who has not migrated to the new system," says director of marketing for the organization Wi-Fi Alliance, Kelly Davis-Felner.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is responsible for establishing standards for the wireless industry.

For the CEO of security firm Errata Security Robert Graham, the new practice of security breach is hardly a cause for despair, but it is worrying.

"The security software on the market are able to stop this attack if the router does not, but the security breach is enough for technology professionals dispense system WPA," he says.

Changing the type of security on the router is simple and can be configured by anyone with administrative access to the equipment interface.