Yes, the 13 years old wifi protocol which was thought to be most secure among all has been proven as insecure at all. Couldn’t believe? Let’s peruse thoroughly and make you belief.
What is WPA 2?
Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA 2) is a security protocol, developed by Wi-Fi Alliance in 2004. It was developed to secure wireless computer networks and is a common shorthand for IEEE 802.11i-2004 standard. Initially, there was another protocol called WPA (Wifi Protected Access) which used a message integrity check algorithm called TKIP to prevent an attacker from altering and resending data packets. Researchers then discovered a flaw in WPA and the flaw is that one can retrieve the keystream from short packets. To solve this problem, WPA2 came. WPA2 includes support for CCMP which is an AEC based encryption mode with strong security. And we have witnessed the transformation of the wifi security over this protocol, no doubt on that.
How is it insecure and what is KRACK?
Every wifi user who use a router, protected over WPA2, thought their wifi connection to be most secure until when KRACK attack was done by hackers early this week and WPA2 was proven as insecure. When we connect a device with a wifi network, any signal sent or received from the device is encrypted. It happens because the router shares an encryption key with the device for every data or message sent/received by the device and everytime the key changes with every new data. If someone gets the key and sends the same key every time to the device or makes it 0, what will happen? Actually it was the concept of KRACK attack. KRACK, short for Key Reinstallation AttaCK, was a hacking attack that found a flaw in WPA2 protocol by security researcher Mathy Vanhoef. It works by tricking the victim’s device into reinstalling the key that was already used, thus allowing data packets to be replaced, decrypted and forged.
What a hacker can do?
The KRACK vulnerability is too dangerous. A hacker use this to decrypt on a wifi network that can put the victim into the risk of identity theft or monetary loss. In some instances, a hacker may be able to inject spyware, ransomware and malware into the website that victim is surfing. Simply we can say, you are in danger.
What about protection?
For getting protected, all we can do is to wait for a patch or a software update from wifi service providers or vendors. Microsoft is already working for this kind of update. But for now, all we can do by ourselves is to make sure that we always use HTTPS. Moreover, using a VPN is a good idea as it encrypts all our traffic. And keep in mind that this attack doesn’t retrieve the password, so changing the password won’t work out.