Wi-Fi WEP Keys Now Crackable in One Minute
Fri Apr 6, 2007 4:48PM EDT
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I harp on wireless security a lot, but early versions of the encryption protocol in wireless routers are getting less and less secure by the day. The latest flaw? The WEP protocol, which can now by cracked in under a minute (or two at the most), and most of that time is involved in capturing data going through the air so it can be analyzed. Once captured, the processing time takes about three seconds.
These cracks are nothing new. As The Register notes, the basics have been around since 2001, but cryptographers have been steadily refining the algorithms to reverse engineer the WEP key from the data. Now it's a matter of child's play.
What can you do? Well, stop using WEP. Though it's not perfect, WPA (also known as WPA-PSK) is somewhat more secure than WEP. (WPA2 is even better, but support is far from universal.) At the very least, WPA cracking tools aren't nearly as widespread as those for cracking WEP. Alas, while new Wi-Fi security protocols have been in the works, none is on the immediate horizon for adoption by the industry.
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2 Posted by jameslongstrider on Mon Apr 9, 2007 1:59AM EDT Report Abuse
Hmm, Thanks for posting this Chris, I wouldn't have found out till much later. As soon as I get back home I'm changing the encryption to WPA on my router. I have some friends who fell victim to someone cracking their WEP lately and doing less than legal things with their internet access. Now I can help prevent that from re-occuring.
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3 Posted by joshooi on Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:20PM EDT Report Abuse
One easy way of maintainng security is to add a wireless router to a non wireless router. Setup the non wireless router as your network. To set up wireless, attached a wireless router (not an access point) to the non-wireless router. This will provide another layer of firewall to your local network. So what if they break the WEP code.
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4 Posted by gwilterdink on Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:00PM EDT Report Abuse
My cheap little Belkin wireless router has MAC address filtering. I maintain a very short list of authorized computers and only they are allowed access. If the MAC address doesn't match with any on the list - blocked. Seems to be very effective.
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1 Posted by somebodys_here on Sat Apr 7, 2007 6:59PM EDT Report Abuse
wow, now I'm really glad I have agood firewall. actually three.