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Flaw in Billions of Wi-Fi Devices Left Communications Open To Eavesdropping

Posted on Wednesday February 26, 2020  |  android, iphone, privacy, security, Wireless Networking

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. From a report: The vulnerability exists in Wi-Fi chips made by Cypress Semiconductor and Broadcom, the latter a chipmaker Cypress acquired in 2016. The affected devices include iPhones, iPads, Macs, Amazon Echos and Kindles, Android devices, Raspberry Pi 3's, and Wi-Fi routers from Asus and Huawei. Eset, the security company that discovered the vulnerability, said the flaw primarily affects Cyperess' and Broadcom's FullMAC WLAN chips, which are used in billions of devices. Eset has named the vulnerability Kr00k, and it is tracked as CVE-2019-15126. Manufacturers have made patches available for most or all of the affected devices, but it's not clear how many devices have installed the patches. Of greatest concern are vulnerable wireless routers, which often go unpatched indefinitely. "This results in scenarios where client devices that are unaffected (either patched or using different Wi-Fi chips not vulnerable to Kr00k) can be connected to an access point (often times beyond an individual's control) that is vulnerable," 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)."

Wi-Fi Now Has Version Numbers, and Wi-Fi 6 Comes Out Next Year

Posted on Wednesday October 03, 2018  |  Wireless Networking

The Wi-Fi Alliance said Wednesday it was rebranding the "802.11" Wi-Fi standards that have long served as a source of potential confusion for users. From now on, said the Wi-Fi Alliance, the current 802.11ac standard will be known as Wi-Fi 5, while its successor 802.11ax will be known as Wi-Fi 6. From a report: In the past, Wi-Fi versions were identified by a letter or a pair of letters that referred to a wireless standard. The current version is 802.11ac, but before that, we had 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11a, and 802.11b. It was not comprehensible, so the Wi-Fi Alliance -- the group that stewards the implementation of Wi-Fi -- is changing it. All of those convoluted codenames are being changed. Now, instead of wondering whether "ac" is better than "n" or if the two versions even work together, you'll just look at the number. Wi-Fi 5 is higher than Wi-Fi 4, so obviously it's better. And since Wi-Fi networks have always worked together, it's somewhat clearer that Wi-Fi 5 devices should be able to connect with Wi-Fi 4 devices, too. Now that the retroactive renaming is done, it's time for the future. If you've been closely following router developments over the past year (no judgments here), you'll know that the next generation of Wi-Fi is on the horizon, with the promise of faster speeds and better performance when handling a multitude of devices. It was supposed to be called 802.11ax, but now it'll go by a simpler name: Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi Alliance says that it expects companies to adopt this numerical advertising in place of the classic lettered versions.

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