[Discuss] comcast wifi question

Edward Ned Harvey (blu) blu at nedharvey.com
Thu Nov 6 19:51:54 EST 2014


> From: Tom Metro [mailto:tmetro+blu at gmail.com]
> 
>   WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK encrypt everything with per-client, per-session
>   keys, but those keys are derived from the Pre-Shared Key (the PSK; the
>   key you have to know to get on the network) plus some information
>   exchanged in the clear when the client joins or re-joins the network.
>   So if you know the PSK for the network, and your sniffer catches the
>   "4-way handshake" another client does with the AP as it joins, you can
>   decrypt all of that client's traffic. If you didn't happen to capture
>   that client's 4-way handshake, you can send a spoofed de-authenticate
>   packet to the target client (spoofing it to make it look like it came
>   from the AP's MAC address), forcing the client to fall off the network
>   and get back on, so you can capture its 4-way handshake this time, and
>   decrypt all further traffic to/from that client.

Additionally, if you get on the network and want to attack another client on the same wifi connection, there's an awful lot of broadcast traffic exposure which is not protected by the session keys, and you can target packets to their specific IP address, will also not be protected by their session keys.  The only thing that's protected by their session keys are their non-broadcast traffic to *other* endpoints.

Based on what you wrote above, even that seems pretty easy to break.



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