Wired Equivalent Privacy:

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a security algorithm for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Introduced as part of the original 802.11 standard ratified in September 1999, its intention was to provide data confidentiality comparable to that of a traditional wired network.[1] WEP, recognizable by the key of 10 or 26 hexadecimal digits, is widely in use and is often the first security choice presented to users by router configuration tools.[2][3] Although its name implies that it is as secure as a wired connection, WEP has been demonstrated to have numerous flaws and has been deprecated in favor of newer standards such as WPA2. In 2003 the Wi-Fi Alliance announced that WEP had been superseded by Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). In 2004, with the ratification of the full 802.11i standard (i.e. WPA2), the IEEE declared that both WEP-40 and WEP-104 "have been deprecated as they fail to meet their security goals". Key size is one of the security limitations in WEP.[8] Cracking a longer key requires interception of more packets, but there are active attacks that stimulate the necessary traffic. There are other weaknesses in WEP, including the possibility of IV collisions and altered packets,[5] that are not helped by using a longer key.

Conclusion
Penetration testing of a wireless network is often a stepping stone for penetration testing of the internal network. The wireless network then serves as a so called entry vector.[31][32] If WPA-RADIUS is in use at a target site, another entry vector must be investigated

WPA and WPA2:

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) are two security protocols and security certification programs developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks. The Alliance defined these in response to serious weaknesses researchers had found in the previous system, WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy).

WPA2 vs WPA for Wireless Security:

WPA2 is a second, newer version of Wireless Protected Access (WPA) security and access control technology for Wi-Fi wireless networking. WPA2 is available on all certified Wi-Fi hardware since 2006 and was an optional feature on some products before that. It is designed to improve the security of Wi-Fi connections by requiring use of stronger wireless encryption than what WPA requires. Specifically, WPA2 does not allow use of an algorithm called TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) that has known security holes (limitations). Most wireless routers for home networks support both WPA and WPA2 and administrators must choose which one to run. Obviously, WPA2 is the simpler, safer choice. Some techies point out that using WPA2 requires Wi-Fi hardware to work harder in running the more advanced encryption algorithms. which can theoretically slow down the network's overall performance compared to running WPA. Network owners can make their own choice but should run experiments to decide whether they notice any difference in their networks speeds with WPA2 vs. WPA.