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October 17, 2017

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US warns of security flaw against Wi-Fi connections

The US government’s computer security watchdog warned yesterday of a security flaw in Wi-Fi encryption protocol which can open the door to attacks to eavesdrop on or hijack devices using wireless networks.

The disclosure by the government’s Computer Emergency Response Team could potentially allow hackers to snoop on or take over millions of devices which use Wi-Fi.

The agency said the flaw was discovered by researchers at the Belgian university KU Leuven.

According to the news site Ars Technica, the discovery was a closely guarded secret for weeks to allow Wi-Fi systems to develop security patches.

Attackers can exploit the flaw in WPA2 — the name for the encryption protocol — “to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted,” said a blog post by KU Leuven researchers.

“This can be abused to steal sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, e-mails, 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.”

The flaw was dubbed KRACK for Key Reinstallation AttaCK because it lets attackers insert a new “key” on a Wi-Fi connection that keeps data private.




 

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