[Sussex] Holbrook - Moot: Wired Networking

[Jon Fautley]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:49:36 +0100
Matt Brown <matt at mbrown.co.uk> wrote:

> Depends on what you feel is interesting I suppose...

You know me well enough to know what I'd find interesting, and I don't
think it's stuff I should post on a public mailing list ;)
 
> Well anyone who knows anything about wireless *should* steer well  
> clear of WEP anyhow, shame no one thought to tell BT that before  
> rolling out the home hub :-)

Yeah. It's nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Problem is, your
average Joe on the street takes about 4 years to catch up with current
technology. That's why we've only just seen the introduction of
"secure by default" access points, like the Home Hub. Anyone that
actually knows about wireless and computer networking has known not to
run an unsecured AP for years.

Now, thanks to all the media coverage of, presumably, terrorists or
something, we're seeing the introduction of WEP. A completely useless
technology, but still - it keeps the terrorists (or whoever) at bay.
 
> Have you managed to break WPA/WPA2 Jon ?

Nope. It looks a lot more complex. Breaking WPA-PSK appears to be
possible, but basically requires a brute force/dictionary attack
against weak packets. There doesn't (yet) seem to be a 'systematic'
attack that can reveal the encryption key. WPA Enterprise (that uses
RADIUS) seems to be pretty immune from what I can see. Besides, even if
a user account is compromised, it's simple to change the password.

As for WPA2, not sure that anyone's found a weakness there yet - and I
do stress 'yet'. It may be that I've missed it though.

/j
-- 
Jon Fautley RHCE, RHCX <jfautley at redhat.com> direct: +44 1252 362815
Technical Account Manager                    office: +44 1252 362700
Red Hat UK                                   mobile: +44 7841 558683
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