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Vulnerability Note VU#723755WiFi Protected Setup PIN brute force vulnerabilityOverviewThe WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) PIN is susceptible to a brute force attack. A design flaw that exists in the WPS specification for the PIN authentication significantly reduces the time required to brute force the entire PIN because it allows an attacker to know when the first half of the 8 digit PIN is correct. The lack of a proper lock out policy after a certain number of failed attempts to guess the PIN on some wireless routers makes this brute force attack that much more feasible.I. DescriptionWiFi Protected Setup (WPS) is a computing standard created by the WiFi Alliance to ease the setup and securing of a wireless home network. WPS contains an authentication method called "external registrar" that only requires the router's PIN. By design this method is susceptible to brute force attacks against the PIN.When the PIN authentication fails the access point will send an EAP-NACK message back to the client. The EAP-NACK messages are sent in a way that an attacker is able to determine if the first half of the PIN is correct. Also, the last digit of the PIN is known because it is a checksum for the PIN. This design greatly reduces the number of attempts needed to brute force the PIN. The number of attempts goes from 108 to 104 + 103 which is 11,000 attempts in total. Workarounds
Referenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Setup Thanks to Stefan Viehböck for reporting this vulnerability. This document was written by Jared Allar.
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