Holes in the WiFi [LWN.net]

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2021-05-21 01:00:06

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The discoverer of the KRACK attacks against WPA2 encryption in WiFi is back with a new set of flaws in the wireless-networking protocols. FragAttacks is a sizable group of WiFi vulnerabilities that (ab)use the fragmentation and aggregation (thus "Frag") features of the standard. The fixes have been coordinated over a nine-month period, which has allowed security researcher Mathy Vanhoef time to create multiple papers, some slide decks, a demo video, patches, and, of course, a web site and logo for the vulnerabilities.

Three of the vulnerabilities are design flaws in the WiFi standards, so they are likely present in all implementations, while the other nine are various implementation-specific problems. The design flaws may be more widespread, but they are much harder to exploit "because doing so requires user interaction or is only possible when using uncommon network settings ". That means the real danger from FragAttacks lies in the programming errors in various WiFi implementations. "Experiments indicate that every Wi-Fi product is affected by at least one vulnerability and that most products are affected by several vulnerabilities. "

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