# WPA personal

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), also referred to as WPA-PSK (pre-shared key) does not require an authentication server.

It uses [TKIP](/glossary/t/tkip), with a key either as a string of 64 hexadecimal digits, or as a passphrase of 8 to 63 characters.

WPA also includes a message integrity check, which is designed to prevent an attacker from altering and resending data packets.

WPA-Personal mode is available with both WPA and WPA2.