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WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

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Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#171

Post by gruez »

dogma1138 wrote: post #167
punnerud wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people don’t know that their equipment is doing this. A lot of WiFi Routers set to auto channel will select some other channel than the one with a lot of deauthentication packages, because the traffic is not stabil on this channel. In this way you get a better Internet connection if your equipment is sending these packages out. As a manufacture you know that you only need a couple of these “bad” devices…

Eh? I haven't seen a single router that monitors packets on the channel other than their own, not to mention management frames of other AP's A deauth packet needs the MAC address of the AP to deauth clients connected to it and the MAC address of client you want to deauth, the latter is not required and an omission would result in the packet being treated as a "broadcast deauth" but many clients do not accept broadcas…

>This is done primarily by cheap ISP's that want to free up IP addresses they basically reset the DSL connection and complete the handshake but does receive a lease until a client on their network attempts to connect to the internet, think of it as a standby mode

How many IP addresses can you possibly save with this tactic? If you have 1000 subscribers, are you really going to only get 990 IP addresses, and hope that your subscribers don't all come online at the same time?

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#172

Post by Syzygies »

akersten wrote: post #134
gmueckl wrote: post #86

I am NOT a laywer, but I checked how much of what the article describes is illegal in Germany. The answer is just about everything. Installing a doorbell with a camera that looks into the hallway is illegal. You may not record what happens in public spaces on security cameras. And even inside your home, you still have to ask for consent to make an audio recording. Otherwise, this constitutes a crime. Also, sniffing W…

> Also, sniffing Wifi for data not aimed at you is illegal. Ugh, yuck, I hate when lawmakers write laws like that. What does that even mean ? All WiFi that I can hear is aimed at me. That's how radio works. No, I'm not being disingenuous or obtuse, this is a legitimate concern with the way we're allowing artistic liberty into the written law. It's really badly ambiguous, not to mention the ridiculous violation of aut…

I'm reminded of early Unix, with default permissions that made one's files public, in the spirit of sharing. Well before one could Google, I wanted good examples of TeX vitas, so I searched all unprotected files of every math department server I could access. Some people were horrified to learn that this was possible or that I had done this.

That most people do not choose 802.11w is a similar state of ignorance. Yes these are public broadcasts. The laws are substitutes for more thoughtful engineering.

We have little privacy on the internet; that ship has sailed, through similar ignorance. It's worth worrying about doorbells, but that's not the big picture.

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#173

Post by swinglock »

the8472 wrote: post #102
blackflame wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethernet is a shared medium as well if you want to talk to other devices on your network. So instead of deauth they do ARP poisoning.

Not in the same way that wifi is, where anyone outside the building can attack it. And even if your ethernet is under attack you have the advantage of being able to physically locate ports.

What's your thoughts on EMP attacks?

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#174

Post by sonotathrowaway »

patcheudor wrote: post #155
pnutjam wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I called the police once when I noticed a wifi AP that was MiTM'ing traffic at the local Kroger. They sent someone out and said it was a misconfigured system in the Deli. Guy was real nice and seemed to understand what I was worried about.

In the US, what law makes it illegal to MitM network traffic using a WiFi evil twin or other technique? I'm genuinely curious because I was under the impression there are generally no such statutes and that the only thing that would be illegal is if the MitM used found credentials.

Possibly the CFAA?

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#175

Post by dogma1138 »

gruez wrote: post #171
dogma1138 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? I haven't seen a single router that monitors packets on the channel other than their own, not to mention management frames of other AP's A deauth packet needs the MAC address of the AP to deauth clients connected to it and the MAC address of client you want to deauth, the latter is not required and an omission would result in the packet being treated as a "broadcast deauth" but many clients do not accept broadcas…

>This is done primarily by cheap ISP's that want to free up IP addresses they basically reset the DSL connection and complete the handshake but does receive a lease until a client on their network attempts to connect to the internet, think of it as a standby mode How many IP addresses can you possibly save with this tactic? If you have 1000 subscribers, are you really going to only get 990 IP addresses, and hope that…

You’ll be surprised just how many people are not using their home internet most of the time.

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#176

Post by rbritton »

bscphil wrote: post #163

I'm not familiar with these devices. Are they not capable of caching a little (15 seconds or so) of recorded video (or much more audio) for sending later when it re-auths with the access point?

Probably, but it would block the alerting feature they highlight in their ads. That said, I find motion detection alerting to be useless on outdoor-facing cameras due to vegetation, weather, and wildlife. The false positive rate makes it annoying.

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#177

Post by gruez »

dogma1138 wrote: post #175
gruez wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is done primarily by cheap ISP's that want to free up IP addresses they basically reset the DSL connection and complete the handshake but does receive a lease until a client on their network attempts to connect to the internet, think of it as a standby mode How many IP addresses can you possibly save with this tactic? If you have 1000 subscribers, are you really going to only get 990 IP addresses, and hope that…

You’ll be surprised just how many people are not using their home internet most of the time.

>most of the time

That's the problem though. Even if most people are offline during the night or during holidays/weekends, you still need to provision enough IP addresses for peak demand. ISPs aren't paying for IP addresses by the hour, they're probably leasing/buying subnets on a yearly basis, if not longer.

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#178

Post by tzs »

gruez wrote: post #133
picselated wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a network admin's perspective- this is necessary to protect the integrity of the air space. It discourages the use of rogue AP's which wreck the channel utilization for everyone. It's common to find this feature in enterprise wifi systems. Some actively spoof the SSID of the rogue AP in order to draw the client back to the institution's network.

And what about the people who don't/can't use the institution's network? Why should the institution be allowed to effectively monopolize the unlicensed airwaves?

If I was in some kind of debate club or moot court or something like that and got assigned to side that is supposed to argue for allowing this, I'd probably look into some kind of property rights approach and make a distinction between radio waves transiting the property and radio waves that originate on the property.

The property owner could make not operating an access point on the property a condition of granting permission to enter the property. Someone who then operated an access point would be trespassing and they (and their access) point could be evicted. In other words, the property owner is already allowed to monopolize those unlicensed airwaves on their property.

If they choose to exercise this monopoly by using technical measures to stop other access points from working, rather than by physically evicting those access points, why should that make a difference as long as those technical measures do not interfere with access point not on their property?

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#179

Post by blacksmith_tb »

blackflame wrote: post #96
the8472 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am saying not everyone is affected, only those who solely rely on wifi. Others have realized that a shared medium with questionable security is inherently unreliable and have other options at their disposal.

Ethernet is a shared medium as well if you want to talk to other devices on your network. So instead of deauth they do ARP poisoning.

But then they're already inside the house, so to speak. Your neighbors are unlikely to be cabled into your LAN.

Re: WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security

#180

Post by blackflame »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #179
blackflame wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethernet is a shared medium as well if you want to talk to other devices on your network. So instead of deauth they do ARP poisoning.

But then they're already inside the house, so to speak. Your neighbors are unlikely to be cabled into your LAN.

True, but if their goal is to kick you offline then sending interference on the coaxial lines might disrupt certain cable providers.
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