Go Back   Wireless and Wifi Forums > News > Newsgroups > alt.internet.wireless
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1 (permalink)  
Old 08-08-2006, 06:44 PM
John Navas
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default ALERT: WPA can be less secure than WEP

SUMMARY:

WPA-PSK is vulnerable to attack, and can be even worse than WEP!

TO AVOID THE PROBLEM:

USE A PASSPHRASE WITH MORE THAN 20 CHARACTERS. Examples:
BAD: "vintage wine"
GOOD: "floor hiking dirt ocean"
(pick your own words, even longer is better)

BACKGROUND:

Weakness in Passphrase Choice in WPA Interface
By Glenn Fleishman
By Robert Moskowitz
Senior Technical Director
ICSA Labs, a division of TruSecure Corp
<http://wifinetnews.com/archives/002452.html>

...
The offline PSK dictionary attack
...
Just about any 8-character string a user may select will be in the
dictionary. As the standard states, passphrases longer than 20 characters
are needed to start deterring attacks. This is considerably longer than
most people will be willing to use.

This offline attack should be easier to execute than the WEP attacks.
...
Using Random values for the PSK

The PSK MAY be a 256-bit (64 hexadecimal) random number. This is a large
number for human entry; 20 character passphrases are considered too long
for entry. Given the nature of the attack against the 4-Way Handshake, a
PSK with only 128 bits of security is really sufficient, and in fact
against current brute-strength attacks, 96 bits SHOULD be adequate. This is
still larger than a large passphrase ...
...
Summary
...
Pre-Shared Keying is provided in the standard to simplify deployments in
small, low risk, networks. The risk of using PSKs against internal attacks
is almost as bad as WEP. The risk of using passphrase based PSKs against
external attacks is greater than using WEP. Thus the only value PSK has is
if only truly random keys are used, or for deploy testing of basic WPA or
802.11i functions. PSK should ONLY be used if this is fully understood by
the deployers.

See also:
Passphrase Flaw Exposed in WPA Wireless Security
<http://www.technewsworld.com/story/32070.html>

Wi-Fi Protected Access. Security in pre-shared key mode
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access>

Cracking Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
<http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=369221>
<http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=370636&rl=1>

WPA Cracker
<http://www.tinypeap.com/html/wpa_cracker.html>

Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
ALERT: WPA isn't necessarily secure John Navas alt.internet.wireless 5 09-05-2006 12:26 AM
[SSL-Talk List FAQ] Secure Sockets Layer Discussion List FAQ v1.1.1 Shannon Appel comp.security.misc 0 10-19-2005 05:37 AM
Google "Secure Access" FAQ + Download link frankdowling1@yahoo.com alt.internet.wireless 11 09-23-2005 09:22 PM
[SSL-Talk List FAQ] Secure Sockets Layer Discussion List FAQ v1.1.1 Shannon Appel comp.security.misc 0 08-30-2005 05:26 AM
[SSL-Talk List FAQ] Secure Sockets Layer Discussion List FAQ v1.1.1 Shannon Appel comp.security.misc 0 07-31-2005 05:25 AM


All times are GMT. The time now is 08:23 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Content Relevant URLs by vBSEO 3.2.0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45