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posted by martyb on Monday October 16 2017, @12:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-sky-is-slowly-descending dept.

Multiple Soylentils submitted stories about a newly-reported vulnerability that has been discovered in the WPA-2 protocol that secures communications on Wi-Fi networks. This is a significant vulnerability, but not quite as bad as some sensationalist headlines and stories would suggest. As I understand it, there is a 4-step process by which keys are exchanged to set up wireless encryption. An attacker can force a connection to repeat the 3rd step and thus force known values for the nonce. An attacker can leverage that information to break the encryption and, in many cases, eavesdrop on communications. In certain cases, it is possible to manipulate the communications and modify/insert a payload.

The vulnerability is in the protocol, not in a specific implementation. The spec fails to call out a mitigation that could preclude key re-use. So, it is an error of omission instead of an error of commission. An implementation can avoid this problem by refusing to reuse a previously received key.

The defect is primarily in the remote device, not in the base station. The researcher called out Android 6+ as being especially vulnerable.

A fix for BSD was silently released ahead of the announcement. I saw a report that Linux has already been patched, but without any supporting link.

The researcher, Mathy Vanhoef, has created a web site with details: https://www.krackattacks.com/. A research paper, Key Reinstallation Attacks: Forcing Nonce Reuse in WPA2 (pdf), is available.

See the Vulnerability Notes Database for information on specific vendors.

Sensationalist reports are already appearing. For a calmer view, see Kevin Beaumont's take on this at Regarding Krack Attacks — WPA2 flaw where he notes:

  • It is patchable, both client and server (Wi-Fi) side.
  • Linux patches are available now. Linux distributions should have it very shortly.
  • The attack doesn't realistically doesn't[sic] work against Windows or iOS devices. The Group vuln is there, but it's not near enough to actually do anything of interest.
  • There is currently no publicly available code out there to attack this in the real world — you would need an incredibly high skill set and to be at the Wi-Fi base station to attack this.
  • Android is the issue, which is why the research paper concentrates on it. The issue with Android is people largely don't patch.

My suggestion for organisations is they ask their Wi-Fi network providers for patches — this is absolutely patchable, as per the researcher's own website.

Severe Flaw in WPA2 Protocol Leaves Wi-Fi Traffic Open to Eavesdropping

The Guardian has an article on it here https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/16/wpa2-wifi-security-vulnerable-hacking-us-government-warns.

Heres the researchers description...

We discovered serious weaknesses in WPA2, a protocol that secures all modern protected Wi-Fi networks. An attacker within range of a victim can exploit these weaknesses using key reinstallation attacks (KRACKs). Concretely, attackers can use this novel attack technique to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted. This can be abused to steal sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, photos, and so on. The attack works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks. Depending on the network configuration, it is also possible to inject and manipulate data. For example, an attacker might be able to inject ransomware or other malware into websites.

From https://www.krackattacks.com

Severe Flaw in WPA2 Protocol Leaves Wi-Fi Traffic Open to Eavesdropping

Warning: This may give you a case of the Mondays:

An air of unease set into the security circles on Sunday as they prepared for the disclosure of high-severity vulnerabilities in the Wi-Fi Protected Access II protocol that make it possible for attackers to eavesdrop Wi-Fi traffic passing between computers and access points.

The proof-of-concept exploit is called KRACK, short for Key Reinstallation Attacks. The research has been a closely guarded secret for weeks ahead of a coordinated disclosure that's scheduled for 8 a.m. Monday, east coast time. An advisory the US CERT recently distributed to about 100 organizations described the research this way:

US-CERT has become aware of several key management vulnerabilities in the 4-way handshake of the Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) security protocol. The impact of exploiting these vulnerabilities includes decryption, packet replay, TCP connection hijacking, HTTP content injection, and others. Note that as protocol-level issues, most or all correct implementations of the standard will be affected. The CERT/CC and the reporting researcher KU Leuven, will be publicly disclosing these vulnerabilities on 16 October 2017.

Wi-Fi WPA2 Security may be Irretrievably Broken

Woody Leonhard has been my go-to source for the status of safety and usability of updates to Windows for years. He's not usually prone to alarmism, so I'm looking at this announcement on his site with a great deal of trepidation:

There's a lot of buzz this weekend about a flaw that's purported to break security on most Wi-Fi connections, allowing an eavesdropper to snoop or use the connection without permission.

Said to involve CVE-2017-13077, 13078, 13079, 13080, 13081, 13082, 13084, 13086, 13087, 13088, when they're posted.

See this thread from @campuscodi and be watching Bleepingcomputer tomorrow for details.

The reference to the tweet by @campuscodi is to "Catalin Cimpanu [who] is the Security News Editor for Bleeping Computer, where he covers topics such as malware, breaches, vulnerabilities, exploits, hacking news, the Dark Web, and a few more." See the tweet for references to background papers which may be of assistance in understanding the nature of the flaw and possible preparations to help try and mitigate the breakage.

There is a web site — https://www.krackattacks.com/ — which was created on October 10 that seems to be a placeholder for posting the details when they are released.

Time to stock up on energy drinks, coffee, and Pringles®?


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @02:44PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @02:44PM (#583004)

    This will not go well. Theo is not known to be someone who keeps quiet, on the topic of Security, or any others.

    Quote from the Q&A on the KrackAttack website:

    Why did OpenBSD silently release a patch before the embargo?

    OpenBSD was notified of the vulnerability on 15 July 2017, before CERT/CC was involved in the coordination. Quite quickly, Theo de Raadt replied and critiqued the tentative disclosure deadline: “In the open source world, if a person writes a diff and has to sit on it for a month, that is very discouraging”. Note that I wrote and included a suggested diff for OpenBSD already, and that at the time the tentative disclosure deadline was around the end of August. As a compromise, I allowed them to silently patch the vulnerability. In hindsight this was a bad decision, since others might rediscover the vulnerability by inspecting their silent patch. To avoid this problem in the future, OpenBSD will now receive vulnerability notifications closer to the end of an embargo.

    OpenBSD will now receive vulnerability notifications closer to the end of an embargo.

    yeah, like putting gasoline on a Theo fire. Hope that works out well for you...

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Monday October 16 2017, @02:57PM (2 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Monday October 16 2017, @02:57PM (#583009)
    Read it again. Theo asked to quietly release the patch pre-disclosure and the researchers initially agreed, then changed their minds and decided it was a bad decision. The timeline is unclear on this (as are additional communications between Theo and the researchers where he may have pressured them into allowing it), but I suspect that Theo's patch was already in the wild by then complete with a comment containing a major clue about the nature of what was fixed - which is possibly what prompted the change of heart. Ultimately, it was the researchers that didn't think the process through sufficiently and as a result won't be releasing *their* info to OpenBSD, so the impact on OpenBSD from other researchers in the future is probably minimal - and assumes that they wouldn't find out from people working on multiple projects anyway.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Monday October 16 2017, @06:39PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Monday October 16 2017, @06:39PM (#583089) Journal

      which is possibly what prompted the change of heart.

      EVERY conversation with Theo ends in a "Change of Heart", he being as congenial and accommodating as a cactus in an outhouse.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:27PM

        by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:27PM (#583426) Journal

        This is as good as any place to comment on all of this :)

        I am certainly not talking from a vantage point of superiority here, far from it (I reside permanently in "the Valley of Slowness"), and I want to make that very clear up front that all of these people are far better and smarter and more efficient than I could ever hope to be, but...

        You're certainly not wrong Frojack and +1 Funny (or more) is well deserved but I do think your point is precisely why everyone ought to appreciate him more; he's one hell of a sane cactus in a mad world :) He is not the only cactus but perhaps the most pointy one and they all deserve a lot more appreciation or dare I say love?

        For anyone wondering why I'll point out that four months is a long time for the technologically superior (not me, see above). Four months is way too long and if those who discovered the flaws had a patch at or near the beginning of those four months (which is incredibly likely since otherwise they would keep on prodding to figure it out first before saying anything), a patch that they could (and as far as I know did) provide as a reference to everyone else, then a single week ought to be enough even for tiny distributions never mind huge companies or established communities.

        Okay, two weeks then. Jeebus Reebus four months!

        If I am wrong then someone tell me why please. Here's how I see the workflow: code language translation (if applicable, will be for some I guess although most will be using C for sure), tweaking (if applicable, will be for many), and testing (rather fast) then push push push should not take four months so release early and if need be release often too, right?

        I did not look at the innards of the patch or count lines of code, maybe I ought to, I'm not trying to claim it doesn't take any work at all, only that it doesn't/shouldn't require months of work. I have looked at their 16 pages long paper (linky here for ease of use [mathyvanhoef.com]) and their two mitigation methods outlined in "6.5 Countermeasures" which doesn't take more than a quarter of a page and all the rest can be seen as detailed background for reference and clarity so it really can't be all that much work for those who are already familiar with the relevant (i.e. their own) source code.

        A race out of the gate creates a swiftly disappearing target as everyone has a fire lit up under their ass. The amount of patching being done will quickly accelerate and then only those who don't patch anyway are left. Microsoft wasn't even affected by this one so what gives? Was this Google's/Alphabet's evilness? Did they (or anyone else) get paid extra to impersonate my level of slowness? :P

        Now on a strictly personal level I don't care (I'm relatively poor and I like big boobies and that's not illegal yet, nor is rum or tobacco, and beyond my insanities I'm rather boring and uninteresting :D ) but the big nasties have it on day 0, they don't respect any embargo and "embargo" is likely a flag for their systems. Four months of jolly good fun for them, free pizza for everyone doing overtime. We know they keep a close eyes on administrators so there's every reason to think all maintainers and researchers and anyone with a whiff of interesting knowledge in the area are under constant surveillance just for nuggets like these.

        Four months embargo, who do they think they are kidding? Self-deception in play in my not so humble big-mouthed ignorant opinion. We all ought to respectfully point that out so they can sleep on it and maybe change their opinion and maybe also become more appreciative of "cactiiuses"¹ in general :D

        This got a bit ranty, it's not directed at you personally Frojack or anyone at all really except the general state of things and well... "four months" ...or even "months".

        ¹ the more pluralals the betterer :)

        --
        Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday October 16 2017, @05:28PM (2 children)

    by darkfeline (1030) on Monday October 16 2017, @05:28PM (#583063) Homepage

    I do not like embargoes either but I at least understand the reasoning behind them. Either Theo does not understand or he does not care; so long as OpenBSD is patched, fuck everyone else who need more time and are now vulnerable since the exploit is out in the wild.

    Well, since Theo does not care about everyone else, it is only fair that everyone else stops caring about OpenBSD. The fact that OpenBSD will now be on the the short end of future disclosures is very much just deserts.

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 16 2017, @05:55PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday October 16 2017, @05:55PM (#583072) Journal

      The fact that OpenBSD will now be on the the short end of future disclosures is very much just deserts.

      Sand deserts or ice deserts?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @08:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @08:01AM (#583366)
      Yeah but isn't OpenBSD supposed to be so secure that it wouldn't be vulnerable to such stuff anyway?

      So don't disclose to OpenBSD at all and let Theo gloat about it being already patched in OpenBSD 10 years ago. ;)