- Saturday, 21 November 2009
- INQ Mobile
- RSS
I quote others in order to better express my own self - Montaigne
WPA data is gone in 60 seconds
JAPANESE BOFFINS took time out from fighting giant moths to work out how to break the WPA encryption system used in wireless routers in just sixty seconds.
Toshihiro Ohigashi of Hiroshima University and Masakatu Morii of Kobe University plan to tell the world plus dog how to do it at a technical conference set for September 25 in Hiroshima.
The attack gives hackers a way to read encrypted traffic sent between computers and certain types of routers that use the WPA or WiFi Protected Access encryption system.
It has been known that WPA could be broken for some months now, but these researchers have come up with a theoretical attack and made it practical.
An earlier attack technique, developed by researchers Martin Beck and Erik Tews, worked on a smaller range of WPA devices and took between 12 and 15 minutes.
Both attacks work on WPA systems that use the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) algorithm.
To be fair the WPA standard is a bit long in the tooth. It was designed as an interim encryption method as WiFi security was developing and has long since been superseded by WPA2. However there is still a fair bit of WPA with TKIP kit out there since 2006.
Newer WPA2 devices that use the stronger Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm remain safe for now. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
I thought W7 activation can be cracked in 60 seconds.
Actually it only takes about 2 sec to break Windows protections, just download the right torrent with t3h tool.
But do they generate keys that are usable with Windows Update? The Windows XP tools were equally as fast, but Microsoft was smart enough to limit ranges of valid keys and such. I suspect they've done the same with Win7.
It's simple, folks. We were told that WPA was the second coming of Jesus, and look where that got us. And now WPA2 is the heir.
Here's what you do: Simply use unencrypted access points and route all traffic via openvpn. No worries about cracked encryption in the protocol; if someone cracks OpenVPN you simply upgrade to the newest version, or regenerate some new certificates, or whatever you want. You don't have to drop $$$ on a router and $$$ on a laptop or new desktop card.
Simple solution, don't use TKIP. You can use AES on WPA you know, I certainly do.
So WPA/AES is still considered secure?
- I'm just asking, since that's what I'm using...
Why bother with WPA and things like that when you can always run SSH or VPN on it.
Problem is WPA is super easy to setup, OpenVPN is not.
It irritates me how the nomenclature is often confused when it is so simple.
WPA is often equated with TKIP and WPA2 with CCMP, but this is wrong...
A wireless access point advertising WPA may offer TKIP or CCMP or both at the same time. The same is true with WPA2.
TKIP is RC4 based.
CCMP is AES based.
How is this hard to understand or explain? And more importantly, and worse!, why do manufacturers get it wrong?
If i remember correctly Windows XP home doesnt support wpa2 where XP does. Im not sure if Microsoft have carried this trend across vista/W7 with professional/ultimate will get wpa2 and home will only get wpa1.