[SecurityRatty] tag: wpa

WPA Cracked

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:14:24 +0000

Battered, but not broken: understanding the WPA crack

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:30:03 +0000

WiFi security takes a hit with the disclosure of an effective exploit for small packets encrypted with the TKIP flavor of WiFi Protected Access. The technique is fiendishly clever; the security solution, simple: switch to AES-only in WPA2.

WPA encryption cracked..

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Just read this about the "more secure" WPA encryption for Wi-Fi networks is now cracked. Read all about it here - apparently by the same guys who broke WEP (this is what hurt TJX). I guess the bar has been raised...

Once thought safe, WPA Wi-Fi encryption is cracked

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Security researchers say they've developed a way to partially crack the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption standard used to protect data on many wireless networks.

Once thought safe, WPA Wi-Fi encryption is cracked

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:00:00 +0000

Security researchers say they've developed a way to partially crack the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption standard used to protect data on many wireless networks.

15 Minutes To Crack Your WPA+TKIP

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:56:53 +0000

Gone in 900 Seconds, Some Crypto Issues with WPA is the tile of the presentation by Erik Tews scheduled for the sixth annual PacSec conference, November 12 and 13, 2008 at Aoyama Diamond Hall in Tokyo, Japan. I'm told that Tews is doing work on WPA+TKIP, a very common and trusted wireless security configuration. Sounds like he's found a way to crack it. This is, it seems, the same Erik Tews described in this Register article from May, 2007, about his new and speedier WEP crack, entitled "Gone in 120 seconds: cracking Wi-Fi security"... Hmmm. sounds familiar...

Speeding up WiFi Hacking with Hardware Accelerators

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:25:22 +0000

Elcomsoft is claiming that the WPA protocol is dead, just because they can speed up brute-force cracking by 100 times using a hardware accelerator. Why exactly is this news? Yes, weak passwords are weak -- we already know that. And strong WPA passwords are still strong. This seems like yet another blatent attempt to grab some press attention with a half-baked cryptanalytic result.

Debunking the Latest Fear Mongering News on WPA security

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:07:51 +0000

I had been meaning to write about recent exaggerated claims that WPA security had been hacked, but George Ou beat me to it. The buzz comes from Elcomsoft's Distributed Password Recovery. The innovation is that they use NVIDIA GPU acceleration for password cracking and can distribute the crack across a network to multiple clients and their NVIDIA GPUs. The GPU acceleration, they claim, "reduces password recovery time by a factor of 20." They also take the unfortunate approach, in a press release, of massive gains in cracking WPA and WPA2 protection, and that they can "...break Wi-Fi encryption up to 100 times faster than by using CPU only." 100 times! 2 orders of magnitude! That must be a lot, right? Well, probably not. This is where George Ou calls shenanigans. First, he points out that this only affects password protection systems that rely on password complexity, and that, as a general rule, the time involved is proportional to the complexity of the password. So if your password would normally take a million years to crack, it would take 10,000 years with this system. Draw your own conclusions. He also points out, just to get past the WPA buzzwordism, that this is a more general attack mechanism and could, for example, be used against certain VPN systems. With respect to WPA/WPA2 specifically, the attack is generally useful only against home users, because they are generally the ones using PSK (Private Shared Key) authentication. "It has zero affect enterprise mode WPA deployments which use TLS protected authentication such as PEAP or EAP-TLS. Internal LAN authentication schemes such as NTLM and LDAP are also significantly weakened. SSL authentication schemes are not vulnerable to this particular attack." If you are relying on password complexity for protection then his advice, and mine, is old news: first, if you're a business, perhaps you should be using a TLS-based authentication system. Also, you should make sure that your passwords are sufficiently complex and changed often enough. Ou has some specific advice about this in his column, but as he says, there are usually easier ways to get passwords (like offering people chocolate for them) than to spend years cracking them with thousands of dollars of computing power.

PCI Bans WEP SecurityStarting 2010

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:38:19 +0000

Version 1.2 for the PCI Data Security Standard was released last week.

One interesting outcome is that the insecure wireless WEP protocol will be banned…but not until June 2010. Says Ars Technica:

Although TJX has become the poster-child for consumer data theft over WiFi, it is (by far) not the only company to use insecure wireless technologies. Wireless security manufacturer AirDefense released a report in late 2007 saying that a quarter of the 4,748 retail access points it surveyed across the US had no security whatsoever, while another quarter only used WEP, “one of the weakest protocols for wireless data encryption.” Just under half (49 percent) of the surveyed hotspots used WiFi Protected Access (WPA) or WPA 2—much stronger encryption protocols than WEP.

If you’re wondering about what other impacts will have, you might want to read through the PCI site or sign up for the SecureWorks webcast on October 14th to learn more.

Slacker Releases G2 Wi-Fi Music Player

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:38:53 +0000

Slacker joins Apple and Microsoft in releasing new models: It's been a busy week for those who follow the latest developments in music players. Apple's new iPods, while not revolutionary, still up the ante for features and quality; Microsoft's new Zunes, released today, come with fascinating new software options; and the Slacker G2 today. The G2, like the iPod touch and all Zunes, sports Wi-Fi.

Slacker licenses music directly from publishers, and includes a perpetual subscription in the cost of the player. Slacker creates stations that feed out an endless supply of music. The new models are $200 for a 4GB model with the ability to list 25 stations (up to 2,500 songs), or $250 for an 8 GB model with 40 stations (up to 4,000 songs). You can also sync your own music in MP3 or WMA format. For $7.50 per month, you can upgrade and store songs you're listening to, as well as avoid ads.

The G2 is already getting reviews as a much-improved upgrade from the first release. Like the Zune, there's no browser or other Internet features, and that might be a positive.

The G2 is tied into Devicescape's Wi-Fi home and hotspot authentication system, which lets Slacker G2 owners pre-program encryption keys or login information for hotspots that they frequent. Devicescape's software both retrieves and stores login information, allowing the G2 to be used in places that would otherwise require either tedious entry of a WPA passphrase, or be unavailable without a Web browser to handle the login.