rainsux
Line Up and Wait
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
- Messages
- 605
- Location
- West Bloomfield, MI
- Display Name
- rainsux
- Home Airfield
- PTK
Do you have a WiFi router/access point? Do you use WPA or WPA2 to
encrypt the bits while they are in the ether? (You should.)
Sadly; the folks at WiFi Alliance require that mfgrs wanting to use the WiFi
term & logo ... must implement an easy-setup feature: WPS = WiFi Protected
Setup. They also require that it be enabled by default. Some vendors have
changed the name to something flashier.
Very recently, it became public knowledge that WPS can be easily cracked ...
allowing the bad-guy to recover the encryption key. How long does it
take? Almost always, less than 10 hours. In some cases, instantly.
The fix:
1. Disable WPS. Unless you are a Linksys/Cisco owner ... in which case,
the disable button ... doesn't work. It says it does, but it does not. Not
yet. Linksys/Cisco is promising a remedy sometime in March. Meanwhile,
Linksys/Cisco recommends disabling WiFi entirely. Then ...
2. Change your WPA or WPA2 passphrase.
Want to know more? This guy is doing a good job of tracking the various
vendor responses:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/31664-waiting-for-the-wps-fix
How could this happen? Somebody decided to ignore the cryptographers'
recommendations ... to make it "easy" for the users and "cheaper" for the
mfgrs. So they adopted a short, static PIN. Several vendors took the
nonsense even further by using the same PIN for every device they mfg'd.
encrypt the bits while they are in the ether? (You should.)
Sadly; the folks at WiFi Alliance require that mfgrs wanting to use the WiFi
term & logo ... must implement an easy-setup feature: WPS = WiFi Protected
Setup. They also require that it be enabled by default. Some vendors have
changed the name to something flashier.
Very recently, it became public knowledge that WPS can be easily cracked ...
allowing the bad-guy to recover the encryption key. How long does it
take? Almost always, less than 10 hours. In some cases, instantly.
The fix:
1. Disable WPS. Unless you are a Linksys/Cisco owner ... in which case,
the disable button ... doesn't work. It says it does, but it does not. Not
yet. Linksys/Cisco is promising a remedy sometime in March. Meanwhile,
Linksys/Cisco recommends disabling WiFi entirely. Then ...
2. Change your WPA or WPA2 passphrase.
Want to know more? This guy is doing a good job of tracking the various
vendor responses:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/31664-waiting-for-the-wps-fix
How could this happen? Somebody decided to ignore the cryptographers'
recommendations ... to make it "easy" for the users and "cheaper" for the
mfgrs. So they adopted a short, static PIN. Several vendors took the
nonsense even further by using the same PIN for every device they mfg'd.
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