All right, the types of wireless encryption.
802.11i is actually an amendment
specifying security mechanisms for 802.11 wireless networks.
I'm going to do a whiteboard diagram here with a couple of different colors.
We'll look at the evolution from WEP to WPA version 2.
I'll color code everything and we'll look at some of the weaknesses as different
technologies evolved or were introduced and how they were fixed and the graduating
security from the insecure WEP to the more secure WPA 3.
All right, web.
Yeah, white equivalent privacy.
It's a bit of a misnomer because it's not even close to being accurate.
It was rushed to market, it had some
serious design flaws and it's just you can p obble web.
We'll talk about that in a second.
Extensible Authentication Protocol supports multiple authentication methods
like token cards, Kerberos, and certificates.
When we talk about remote authentication, there's a bunch of subcategories of EAP.
We're not going to pick all of them apart.
We're going to differentiate a little bit between things like Peep and Leap.
Then we'll also talk about 802.1 X authentication.
Speaking of Leap, Leap is a proprietary version of EAP developed by Cisco.
Eap by itself is clear text, which means you can actually eavesdrop on it.
Leap was an encrypted version and actually
was found to be somewhat insecure, somewhat about accurate.
We had a couple of tools that came out right out of the gates.
As Leap, THC Leapcracker for cracking Leap authentication.
We're going to consider that to be insecure in retrospect.
Wpa, I'm going to do the whole graduation here in a second, but that fixed some of
the initial issues of web, not everything, but some.
One of the ways it did it was using TKIP,
which is Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, which rotates the static portion of the
web key every 10,000 packets or the encryption key.
I'm going to talk about that here in a second.
Our WPA2.
Upgraded WPA using AES and CCMP, we'll diagram it.
Aes is a symmetric key encryption, much
more secure and a better choice for wireless communications than the RC4
Stream C ypher, which is used by WEP and TKIP.
Ccmp is the flavor of AES used by PA2.
Wpa2 enterprise uses EAP, that means radius server 802.1x authentication.
Radius, we've already talked about radius
servers, we know what those are a centralized authentication and
authorization and accounting server, we left off the third A there.
Management system.
Peep, protected, extensive authentication protocol, puts EAP inside of a TLS tunnel.
Remember, there are clear text protocols.
We really typically protect those one of three ways, SSL, TLS, SSH or IBISC.
Wpa version 3. Third generation.
There's already a tax for that.
Dragon Blood Suite, GCMP256 for
encryption, HMAC Shaw 384 for authentication.
I'm going to go to the whiteboard for a
second and just give my standard what's wrong with web diagram since we're leading
into it with the web slide, the WPA, WPA2, and then WPA3.
I'm going to cover all of these here in a nice straightforward simple diagram.
Number 1, web.
We're going to use red.
Web is like a funnel.
My funnel is never even on both sides.
I use a 40 or 104 bit static key.
Anytime you use a static encryption key,
that's insecure since you'll see several instances encrypt the same algorithm, same
key, and the more you use a static key, the more likely it is to be attacked.
So for randomness, use a 24 bit
initialization vector or nonce or seed value that is concatenated with the 40 or
104 bit key, and that gives us 64 bit or 128 bit keys.
All right, that is fed into the RC 4 stream cypher.
You have a pseudo random number generator component.
This is the problem.
It's a skull, by the way, and cross bones.
These initialization vectors, although we have 16.8 million of those, there is a
subset of these IVs that are considered to be weak and the pseudo random number
generation engine is not quite random enough and it allows us to do a prediction
of generated web keys based on statistical analysis.
The 24 bit IV is concatenated with the key, drops into R C 4, it creates a key
stream, and if I collect enough of these interesting initialization vectors, I can
crack the web key and I can do that on a good day in about 45 seconds.
That's the problem with web.
Weaknesses, you had a relatively small key space, used CRC 32 for the integrity check
and riddled the problems right out the gates.
Got spanked pretty hard right out the
gates with the cork attack, the FMS attack, and then that got refined and
refined and refined down to where it only requires about...
I can do it about 16,000 captured packets.
Our web is in red.
Wpa, let's put that in blue.
Wpa comes along.
Wpa addresses the static nature of the key by using pre shared key authentication or
802.1x authentication, which allows you to use a radius server or pre shared key.
It used TKIP, Temporal Key Integrity Protocol,
which rotates the static portion of the key every 10,000 packets.
So you take the static nature of the key out of the equation.
It also used 48 bit Initialization
Vectors, which gave you a much broader Initialization Vector key space.
It used message integrity code for the integrity check.
So WPA fixed some of the initial issues
with web, but now you can still crack the PSK.
It depends on the complexity of the
password, but PSK attacks are typically wordless based.
Come back for CH, we'll talk a lot more
about that, but still could be attacked and so can WPA version 2.
But WPA version 2 made some changes to the transport encryption.
Instead of using a stream cifer, it uses a
symmetric block cifer, and that block cifer is AES.
So AES which uses CCMP.
And that is one flavor of AES.
And that is way more secure for the
transport layer, but it's still subject to the same PSK authentication.
So you can crack WPA version 2 with AES as
easily as you can crack WPA2 with TKIP if you're just cracking the pre shared key.
And that's just a four way challenge handshake.
It's a slow key rate, but it's still
doable if you capture an authentication request.
All right, then WPA version 3 comes along.
Let's use purple for that.
Wpa 3 uses the drag Dag and Fly SAE key exchange.
We've already got attack tools for that.
That's the evolution of WEP.
It's WPA, PA2, and PA3.
You should never, ever use WEP.
Wep is hortfully outdated and you can just
beat that thing like there's no tomorrow, but it's still out there.
You still run into it.
So at one particular, pre pandemic, when we were doing a lot of live classes, I
have one particular client in Atlanta that we're in a big office park.
T here's dozens of buildings and there's 24 in the whole park.
W e've actually hopped around a bit from location to location to location.
Wherever we were over the years, there's
always at least one web access point within range, sometimes more.
It's scary.
One more quick example.
Hacker Halted is EC Council's big conference every year.
One year, we're in Miami and I'm teaching
a CH course and I'm in the big conference room right across from the Starbucks.
This is also a rogue access point discussion.
I noticed Starbucks has no wireless network.
Well, that's just too much to resist.
I take out my phone and I turn on WiFi
tethering and I call the network Starbucks with an I.
Didn't spell it right, Starbucks.
Is there anything wrong with what I was doing there?
No, it's my access point.
I can call my network whatever I like.
I could have called it Starbucks if I like it.
It's my access point.
But you get prudent malicious intent, things get a little bit stickier.
Stood it up, called it Starbucks, Starbucks.
Within three minutes, had my maximum number of allowable clients, was running
Wireshark for route, which we'll talk about in a later module, and captured two
sets of clear text corporate authentication credentials.
I guarantee there are corporate credentials.
Tell it by the domain names.
Didn't do anything with it, of course, because that would be unethical.
Then that is also the only time in 20
years that anybody has ever come looking for me standing up, where I was equipment.
The only time.
Lots of hotels, lots of airports, lots of tinkering around, never crossed the line.
But as far as rogue access points or
devices are detected, that's the only time they've ever come looking for me.
So kudos to the hotel security at Intercontinental in Miami.
Only time everybody's ever come looking.
But I wasn't doing anything wrong.
So that shows you how easy it is to walk into any public
place, impersonate their network, and the average human doesn't care.
They want free wireless, so I'm connecting to it.
They don't think twice about who's actually intercepting that data.
So when you're
traveling, airports, hotels, things like that, exercise, extreme caution.
We went to Hungary a couple of years ago.
My wife and I, your mother before we got married and all that, and I was just
biting my tongue because I'm running up my data charges, but there was no way I was
going to connect my phone to public WiFi access.
Vpn solutions are a good option as well, but definitely exercise caution.
When you're dealing with wireless
connections that you don't control or are unfamiliar.
I'm going to jump off my soapbox.
There's the evolution of web to WPA to PA2 to PA3.