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Hands-on: hacking WiFi Protected Setup with Reaver
To find out just how big the hole was, I downloaded and compiled Reaver for a bit of New Years geek fun. As it turns out, it's a pretty big one—even with WPS allegedly turned off on a target router, I was able to get it to cough up the SSID and password. |
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Comments (4)
This is a huge security issue for anyone with an affected router, and there are LOTS of them out there. Those of you with routers that can be flashed should consider changing your firmware to an Open Source solution, like DD-WRT, or any one of the derivatives or alternatives that are out there. I personally use a Linksys router that's been flashed with Gargoyle.
Unfortunately, most routers can't be flashed, from what I've seen. I had to look long and hard on Ebay to find a router that would run DD-WRT, as so many of them don't (and many times, only certain hardware revisions will with the same model name!). If you want to run an alternative firmware like DD-WRT, Tomato, etc. (DD-WRT seems to have, by FAR, the largest list of compatible hardware), then pick your router carefully. Also be careful because many routers on the list are a "work in progress", are a big pain to re-flash, etc. I ended up getting a Cisco/Linksys E1000v1, which worked great. I needed it so I could slap it on the back of a wired-Ethernet-only printer/copier I got, so I could put it in another room using wireless bridging. Very few routers do this with their stock firmware, and while D-Links will do it, they have a horribly cr@ppy implementation that precludes the use of WPA2 if you use bridging.
The other problem I see is that it looks like 5Ghz 802.11n support is either spotty or non-existent with the alternative firmwares.
The other problem I see is that it looks like 5Ghz 802.11n support is either spotty or non-existent with the alternative firmwares.
Actually, there a a great number of Routers that CAN be flashed . All you need to do is to go onto the website for the alternative firmware and look at their list of compatible hardware (all of them have one). WiFi-n may indeed be a problem right now,... But virtually all modern routers can have their firmware updated, and a surprising number of those can be made to run alternative firmware.
@JaseP: Yes, a huge number can be flashed. However, a huger number cannot. Well, technically they can, but there's no alternative firmware available for those models, so you can only reflash them with mfgr firmware. The problem the alternative firmwares have is they need a certain amount of memory, and have some other technical requirements (something about nvram), and many models don't meet those requirements, so there's no alternative firmware for them. Even worse, a router with a particular model number may have several hardware revisions, and only certain ones can run the alternative firmware (frequently they cut down the memory in later versions to save money).
So, my point is, you have to be really careful in picking a router if you want to run DD-WRT or other firmware: Carefully check the database on the website, make sure the model number and hardware revision are supported, and also look at the other notes and make sure it's easy enough to reflash and that it's not a WIP (work in progress) with things broken. A lot of the supported models are no longer for sale (as the mfgrs change hardware every quarter it seems), so this limits your selection even more. I got mine from Ebay, a Cisco E1000, but it took a little while; it seems a lot of other people have the same idea as me so the models with good DD-WRT support get bid way up, while the others don't get any bids at all, but there's tons of people selling the models that are useless for reflashing. You also have to be really careful as a lot of sellers don't provide the HW revision number, so you need to ask for that. There were a bunch of auctions I was set to bid on but waited for the seller to respond with the HW rev number, only to find out it was the one revision that wasn't supported by DD-WRT.
So, my point is, you have to be really careful in picking a router if you want to run DD-WRT or other firmware: Carefully check the database on the website, make sure the model number and hardware revision are supported, and also look at the other notes and make sure it's easy enough to reflash and that it's not a WIP (work in progress) with things broken. A lot of the supported models are no longer for sale (as the mfgrs change hardware every quarter it seems), so this limits your selection even more. I got mine from Ebay, a Cisco E1000, but it took a little while; it seems a lot of other people have the same idea as me so the models with good DD-WRT support get bid way up, while the others don't get any bids at all, but there's tons of people selling the models that are useless for reflashing. You also have to be really careful as a lot of sellers don't provide the HW revision number, so you need to ask for that. There were a bunch of auctions I was set to bid on but waited for the seller to respond with the HW rev number, only to find out it was the one revision that wasn't supported by DD-WRT.
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