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posted by janrinok on Friday February 28 2020, @05:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the encrypted-for-some-values-of-encryption dept.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/02/flaw-in-billions-of-wi-fi-devices-left-communications-open-to-eavesdroppng/

Billions of devices—many of them already patched—are affected by a Wi-Fi vulnerability that allows nearby attackers to decrypt sensitive data sent over the air, researchers said on Wednesday at the RSA security conference.

[...]Eset researchers wrote in a research paper published on Wednesday. "The attack surface is greatly increased, since an adversary can decrypt data that was transmitted by a vulnerable access point to a specific client (which may or may not be vulnerable itself)."

[...]Kr00k exploits a weakness that occurs when wireless devices disassociate from a wireless access point. If either the end-user device or the access point is vulnerable, it will put any unsent data frames into a transmit buffer and then send them over the air. Rather than encrypt this data with the session key negotiated earlier and used during the normal connection, vulnerable devices use a key consisting of all zeros, a move that makes decryption trivial.

[...]Eset researchers determined that a variety of devices are vulnerable, including:

  • Amazon Echo 2nd gen
  • Amazon Kindle 8th gen
  • Apple iPad mini 2
  • Apple iPhone 6, 6S, 8, XR
  • Apple MacBook Air Retina 13-inch 2018
  • Google Nexus 5
  • Google Nexus 6
  • Google Nexus 6S
  • Raspberry Pi 3
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505
  • Samsung Galaxy S8
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3S

The researchers also found that the following wireless routers are vulnerable:

  • Asus RT-N12
  • Huawei B612S-25d
  • Huawei EchoLife HG8245H
  • Huawei E5577Cs-321

An Apple spokesman said the vulnerabilities were patched last October with details for macOS here and for iOS and iPadOS here.

[...]While the vulnerability is interesting and users should make sure their devices are patched quickly—if they aren't already—there are a few things that minimize the real-world threat posed.

[...]Despite the limited threat posed, readers should ensure their devices have received updates issued by the manufacturers. This advice is most important for users of vulnerable Wi-Fi routers, since routers are often hard to patch and because vulnerable routers leave communications open to interception even when client devices are unaffected or are already patched.


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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday February 28 2020, @05:51PM (6 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday February 28 2020, @05:51PM (#964212) Journal

    So what if someone else can get a few data packets from the devices that are spying on your all the time. Instead of 200 (advertisers, government agencies, etc) it's now 201.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @08:06PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @08:06PM (#964305)

    Sniffing enough wifi packets that you could get the login credentials. I thought this was well known over 10 years ago.

    • (Score: 2) by NickM on Friday February 28 2020, @09:33PM (4 children)

      by NickM (2867) on Friday February 28 2020, @09:33PM (#964345) Journal
      You must be extremely lucky to catch one interesting packet that was sent to the AP before the device deassociation event but transmitted after it.
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      • (Score: 2) by NickM on Friday February 28 2020, @09:39PM (2 children)

        by NickM (2867) on Friday February 28 2020, @09:39PM (#964351) Journal
        Nevermind! I read the whole paper and device deassociation frame are sent in unauthenticated clear text, it implies that an attacker can exploit this at will !
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        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday February 29 2020, @03:47AM (1 child)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday February 29 2020, @03:47AM (#964501) Journal
          Still doesn't matter. It's wifi - so it's not like it's a network attack that someone a mile away or on the other side of the world could do. And I doubt any of your neighbours give a shit about anything beyond their own interests anyway. Just dump the home spying network devices. Problem solved. Or is everyone so fat and lazy they can't even turn their own lights off any more?
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          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NickM on Sunday March 01 2020, @04:17PM

            by NickM (2867) on Sunday March 01 2020, @04:17PM (#964939) Journal

            At home, I concede that this is not that scary but in a corporate settings this technique gives an attacker the potential to harvest a lots of juicy credentials since almost the all the suits use laptops, they are assuredly wirelessly connected when they are in a meeting room and since they are suits they are almost always in a meeting of some sorts.

            News like this, makes me glad that I don't work in the IT security administrative unit .

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      • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Friday February 28 2020, @11:37PM

        by TheGratefulNet (659) on Friday February 28 2020, @11:37PM (#964401)

        pwnagotchi

        google it.

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