Archives de Catégorie: WiFi

Wi-Fi KRACK Vulnerability – WPA2

There is a new security flaw in Wi-Fi protocols WPA2 known as “KRACK” that has recently been discovered. This vulnerability is widespread and affects a large number of wireless infrastructure devices (whether at home, in a coffee shop, at a hotel or in an office).
In essence, this vulnerability allows an attacker to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted over Wi-Fi. Although it is difficult for the average person to hack your system, this is a weakness that is worth being aware of.

Companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google and others have already begun issuing security patches, and it is imperative that you keep your devices up to date to prevent this vulnerability from being exploited. If you have not already done so, please install the latest updates available for your mobile devices (phones, tablets and computers). This will help remedy the situation.

Also, if you use Wi-Fi at home, feel free to check with your provider to ensure that they are addressing this issue as well and that you are protected.
When connecting to a wireless network that you don’t know for sure is secure, avoid accessing and sharing sensitive information (passwords, banking information, etc…) until systems have been patched on a more global scale.

WPA vs WPA2 for Wireless Security

As the name suggests, WPA2 is a second, newer version of Wireless Protected Access (WPA) security and access control technology for Wi-Fi wireless networking. WPA2 is available on all certified Wi-Fi hardware since 2006 and was an optional feature on some products before that. It is designed to improve the security of Wi-Fi connections by requiring use of stronger wireless encryption than what WPA requires. Specifically, WPA2 does not allow use of an algorithm called TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) that has known security holes (limitations).

Most wireless routers for home networks support both WPA and WPA2 and administrators must choose which one to run. Obviously, WPA2 is the simpler, safer choice. Some techies point out that using WPA2 requires Wi-Fi hardware to work harder in running the more advanced encryption algorithms, which can theoretically slow down the network’s overall performance compared to running WPA. Network owners can make their own choice but should run experiments to decide whether they notice any difference in their networks speeds with WPA2 vs. WPA.

Disable Home WiFi Broadcasting

Most wireless access points and routers automatically transmit their network name (SSID) in the open. This feature of wireless network protocols is intended to allow users to dynamically discover and roam between WLANs.

However, this feature also makes it easier for hackers to break into your home network. Because SSIDs are not encrypted or otherwise scrambled, it becomes easy to grab one by snooping the WLAN looking for SSID broadcast messages coming from the router or AP. Knowing your SSID brings hackers one step closer to a successful intrusion.

In a home WiFi network, roaming is largely unnecessary and the SSID broadcast feature serves no useful purpose. You can disable this feature to improve the security of your WLAN. Once the wireless users are manually configured with the right SSID, they no longer require these broadcast messages.

Note that disabling SSID broadcast is just one of many techniques for tightening security on a wiriless network. This technique is not 100% effective, as hackers can still detect the SSID by sniffing different messages.

Can I make phone calls with iPad2 3G?

One of the the questions we’ve heard asked alot by end users is whether they can make phone calls from their iPad 3G. Well, the iPad is not a phone. However, you can make phone calls via one of the iPhone services such as Skype, Facetime, Viber, MobileVOIP, Text Free or any other VOIP apps as long as you have an Internet connection and as long as the other device has the same application installed to establish communication.