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WPA2 Security Flaw Puts Almost Every Wi-Fi Device at Risk of Hijack, Eavesdropping (zdnet.com)
A security protocol at the heart of most modern Wi-Fi devices, including computers, phones, and routers, has been broken, putting almost every wireless-enabled device at risk of attack. From a report: The bug, known as "KRACK" for Key Reinstallation Attack, exposes a fundamental flaw in WPA2, a common protocol used in securing most modern wireless networks. Mathy Vanhoef, a computer security academic, who found the flaw, said the weakness lies in the protocol's four-way handshake, which securely allows new devices with a pre-shared password to join the network. That weakness can, at its worst, allow an attacker to decrypt network traffic from a WPA2-enabled device, hijack connections, and inject content into the traffic stream. In other words: hackers can eavesdrop on your network traffic. The bug represents a complete breakdown of the WPA2 protocol, for both personal and enterprise devices -- putting every supported device at risk. "If your device supports Wi-Fi, it is most likely affected," said Vanhoef, on his website. News of the vulnerability was later confirmed on Monday by US Homeland Security's cyber-emergency unit US-CERT, which about two months ago had confidentially warned vendors and experts of the bug, ZDNet has learned.
Public announcement from Mathy Vanhoef is https://www.krackattacks.com/ and his research paper can be found https://papers.mathyvanhoef.co....
Since no one else uses it, WEP might protect you since people have given up looking for it.
This would be a good time to point out how many vulnerable (and probably forever unpatched) devices would result from the push for IoT.
WPA2 enterprise doesn't use a pre-shared key. So which is it? Does the weakness lie with pre-shared key passwords? Or something else which also affects WPA2 enterprise?
Ah, here we go. The answer is "it's complicated." I'm reading through it right now, but as a PSA:
In the future can we link to original source articles or responses by authoritative organizations, instead of trade rags?
Replay packet 3 in the 4 way handshake, and the client will encrypt two different payloads with the same key and nonce. A big mistake with most encryption methods.
Worse, linux wpa_supplicant nulls out the key memory but still processes the replayed packet, causing the client to use a known (zero) key.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
it's an attack on the client machine, not on the access point. ...).
it means that any unpatched device connected to a wifi network with WPA2 encryption can expect the same security as being connected to an unsecured wifi (anyone can eavesdrop your communication, or could inject stuff,
how easy it is to do, don't know yet, but it seems to be a feasible attack to carry out.
Need to build a device with the special software and come within range of a router to sniff the keys. Then can eaves drop on communication between router and client.
It will take a day at least to build it and then one has to come physically close.
Vulnerable places will be coffee shops, malls, airports etc. Stores that use wi-fi between cash registers and router would be the primary target. BTW Target had security cameras and cash registers talking to the same router using same passwords. If I remember it correctly.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
No it is an attack on both. Though it appears that patched clients would be safe while connected to an upatched AP.
I'm really fucking concerned about how Google will fix this for Android, the most popular OS in the world.
Recent stats are showing that only 0.2% of users are using Android 8.0, the latest version. Only about 18% are using Android 7.x releases. A whopping 32% are using Android 6.x! About 28% are using Android 5.x! About 21% are using Android 4.x!
So like 80% of Android users are still using Android 6.x and earlier!
If this problem can be avoided with a software fix, I think that Google should do everything they possibly can to get this fix to as many Android devices as possible.
I'm sure some fools here will come along and just tell affected users to "buy a new phone" or some infeasible bullshit like that. Realistically, that's not happening. Users will continue to use their older devices. It will reflect badly on Android if it's susceptible to this wifi security issue, even on older devices.
While they obviously can't provide updates to all of the Android devices out there, I really hope that Google will do what they can to get the fix to at least all Nexus and Pixel devices from the Nexus 4 onward.
The most sensible solution would be to fix it in Android 8.x, and then port Android 8.x to the Nexus 4 and all devices after it. Then this release would be made available to those who wish to upgrade. Not only would this fix this wifi problem, but it would also help fix at least some of the serious version fragmentation that Android is currently experiencing.
And vice versa, a patched AP can prevent a client from breaking. One or the other side needs to prevent it, but either side by itself is sufficient.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Google can't do anything about that.
It's the fucking telcos who are withholding updates from the end users. Even if you have the patched version on your hard drive, you can't install it, because your wireless provider won't let you. Verizon is the most egregious offender; as long as they continue to refuse to sell devices with unlocked bootloaders, the only way to install an update is when the telco feels like pushing it to the users.
Note that I would *hope* point of sale equipment and security equipment would use TLS regardless of the media. If that were the case, then the WPA2 weakness would not suddenly provide access to that material.
For a private laptop connecting to public wifi-hotspots, this attack is harder than just setting up another credible wifi hotspot. Any place where the wifi password is well known knowledge is never going to be rigorous security.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Some years ago it was reported that a large liquor store in our town was using unencrypted communication between cash registers and an on site computer. They got hacked by someone outside the store in the parking lot. After that discovery and for a while they were using the old fashion carbon paper swipe devices for embossed credit cards or took only cash. The problem was solved by replacing cash registers with ethernet wiring.
The lesson here may be to use the ethernet connection on your laptop when possible for sensitive data use until its WPA2 software is updated. Oh, wait, most new laptops and certainly phones don't come with ethernet connectors and would require a dongle. Ah, the wonderful advances brought to us by ultra thin, lightweight portable computing.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I'm not sure older devices have the hardware capable of supporting Android 8.0.0, aka, Oreo. Even phones a couple of generation old would likely would become unacceptably slow with the newer OS. A huge majority of Android devices are not Nexus or Pixel devices and generally not updated by the carriers. Even older Nexus devices are not guaranteed security updates by Google.
The best thing might be for Google to provide appropriate security patch software for WPA2 for all versions of Android to carriers but it's likely they would never reach customer phones.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
The security industry would define this as a remote exploit as it does not require physical access to any of the devices nor does it require the attacker to be logged into the target devices. While the attack would result in decrypting any clear text being sent over wifi, the saving grace is that an increasing amount of traffic is sent via HTTPS or SSL, which would provide an additional barrier to an attacker seeing login credentials for remote websites, etc.
The most dramatic concern here is that non-HTTPS traffic is prone to injection of malware and exploitation of vulnerabilities on the client devices. Even if a user doesn't browse a sketchy website, suddenly a site like slashdot.org might seem to send code to a user's phone or laptop that could perform a remote code exploit.
As 140Mandak suggests, it would be trivial to assemble a cheap box (think raspberry pi 3) that sits at a public wifi location and automatically attempts to hack all older Android phones that connect to the network.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The telcos have absolutely nothing to do with updates for Android phones, with the exceptions of those that they themselves have branded. It's the manufacturers who are responsible. Your comments were sort-of true for the previous generation of feature phones, but Android devices aren't something telcos have control over.
The problem here is that manufacturers have few incentives, apparently, to keep Android devices up to date.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.