A WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) vulnerability has recently been discovered that reduces the brute forcing time significantly. The vulnerability can be exploited to find out when the first four digits of the eight digit pin are correct. Instead of having to try 10⁸ possible combinations, attackers now have to try 10⁴ + 10³ combinations which reduces the attempts from 100 million to 11000 in total.

That’s a significant reduction in attempts. Some wireless routers slow down brute force attempts automatically as a security precaution, others do not have those features implemented. The attack may also result in a denial of service condition according to information posted on the US-Cert website.

Attackers can exploit the vulnerability to brute force their way into wireless routers at a much faster pace than before.

The vulnerability can only be patched with a firmware update. While it is likely that newer models will receive an update eventually that patches the flaw, it is unlikely that all affected router models will receive one.

Computer users who are currently using WiFi Protected Setup should disable the feature and configure their router manually instead. It is recommended to switch to WPA2 encryption with a strong password. US-Cert furthermore recommends to disable UPnP and to enable Mac filtering. The latter may keep amateurs at bay, but not professionals.

The vulnerability disclosure page lists vendors that are affected by the vulnerability. The who is who includes D-Link, Netgear, Zyxel, Linksys or Belkin among others.

Setting up a router’s wireless connection manually is a challenging experience for less than tech-savvy computer users.

Additional information about the vulnerability can be found at Stefan Viehböck’s website. The author promised to release a brute force tool to demonstrate the impact of the vulnerability.

This is all great news but there are still some technologies that have got to change in 2012 and they need to do this very quickly or else the technology we use will move so far ahead of them that innovation itself will begin to suffer.  Those technologies are all concerned with the Internet itself or with Internet communications.

Let’s start with the ADSL or DSL broadband lines coming into our homes and offices.  Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a country such as Sweden which already enjoys 50Mb/sec lines or faster you’ll be lucky to get a stable connection on a tenth of that.  Indeed the old 2 miles from the telephone exchange line is wearing thin with many but telecoms companies and governments simply aren’t doing enough to rectify the problem.  Here in the UK we think that people who live in countryside villages and who still have to use dial up or get a 512k/sec broadband line have a bad deal.  In some countries where the distances are far further such as the USA, Canada and Australia the problems are 100 times worse.

It’s a similar story with mobile networks.  The USA was late to the 3G game but has forged ahead with 4G connections.  Many other countries however are still several years away from moving to 4G, but which time it’ll be time to move onto something else in all probability.  The mobile networks also need to sort out the mess that is unlimited data plans and manage their networks in such a way as to allow people to use mobile broadband properly.  The pricing for mobile broadband also has to drop by at least 50% next year.  There’s already more than enough money to be made and many people, especially those in isolated areas would love to move away from an ADSL line and onto a SIM contract.  At the moment though it’s still far too expensive to do this.

Many people think that a universal wireless solution like a full roll-out of 4G or WiMax will solve the problem and make traditional broadband lines obsolete.  Telecommunications companies need to protect their bottom lines however and, as such, a lot of innovation is being stifled for reasons of profit and share prices.

When we actually are able to get online though using our sexy new devices we find that the web is still looking as old and outdated as it was in 2003.  Back then we didn’t have the preponderance of smartphones, tablets and touch-screen PCs that we do now.  Even next year’s iMacs are rumoured to be multi-touch but almost none of the world’s largest websites have moved to a touch-friendly design yet.  I did this with my own website last month and firmly believe it’s absolutely essential.  Some companies are making a move in this direction with the BBC launching a part-touch-friendly website recently but the new YouTube redesign is traditional menus and mouse control only.

It’s one thing having new interfaces and new form factors that enable us to use the web in new and exciting ways, and new operating systems that are designed primarily around touch.  If we can’t get good, quick and stable connections to the web though, or properly and effectively use the websites we visit when we get there all this technology is going to waste.  Here’s hoping that 2012 brings us much more than just a move to IPv6 and some 4G radio spectrum auctions.  What technologies do you think really need to change in 2012 and do you agree with me here?  Why not tell us in the comments.

For a long time, WEP was considered to be an extremely good method of encrypting wireless connections. The acronym simply means Wired Equivalent Privacy. Originally it was only available in 64-bit configuration, but soon after 128-bit and even 256-bit encryption became available. Entering a 64-bit WEP Wi-Fi key was as simple as choosing a ten character hexadecimal number. Each character represented 4 bits, making 40 bits in total, and then 24 bits were added to complete the 64-bit key. WEP however, was proved to have many flaws mainly involving the short key size, which were relatively easy to crack. WEP also does not provide for security against altered packets – a process where packets of information is intercepted by an intruder and then altered before sending them back, making it look like the intruder is valid user.

These days, WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and WPA2 have completely taken over from the old WEP encryption methods. You’ll probably still find WEP available on most routers, but it’s being phased out and someday it probably won’t be available at all. The main advantage WPA has over WEP is that it employs a powerful new feature called TKIP, or rather Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. TKIP is 128-bit, but instead of the key being static, it generates a new key for every packet of information that is sent, meaning it is a lot more secure. WPA also integrates a method of message integrity checks, used to defeat network attackers intercepting and altering data packets. WPA2 goes even further and replaces TKIP with CCMP. CCMP is an AES based encryption method that is much stronger even than TKIP.

In the home, you’ll probably want to use an encryption method called WPA-Personal. This is sometimes also called WPA-PSK. PSK stands for Pre-Shared Key, and is designed for home users and small offices where a server is not required for authenticating messages. It works by having each wireless device such as a laptop or smart phone authenticating directly with the wireless access point using the same key. Offices and large buildings may employ WPA-Enterprise. You can’t generally use this without a complicated authentication server set-up, but it does provide additional security.

Both WPA-SPK and WPA-Enterprise are available in WPA2, meaning even home users can now benefit from AES encryption over their Wi-Fi connections. All of these methods can transmit data at maximum speed, and you won’t notice any speed differences between each type of encryption. Therefore the recommendation is to use the best encryption you can. This means going for WPA2-PSK where you can in a home environment. There are new and more exotic types of Wi-Fi encryption becoming available, but for now even advanced users will find WPA2 more than adequate for most security applications.

If you are using wireless connections, you may want to check your router to make sure that it does not use encryption that can easily be cracked by users with the right toolset.

Sometimes though things do not go as planned. Maybe you cannot establish a connection successfully, or you notice connection drops or other issues that you need to resolve.

A software like TekWifi can aid you in that process. The program is a wireless connection and diagnostic tool for Windows PCs. All you need to do is to run it after unpacking it on the system. The program will automatically display all available WLAN connections that were picked up by the computer’s wireless module. You see the Wlan’s name, type, authentication, cipher and signal in a table like structure.

You can select a wireless network from the list by double-clicking it. This opens the Diagnostic tab where you can enter the key for the wireless network. A click on Connect will establish a connection to the network. If that fails, you can click on Diagnose to get diagnostic information right in the same window.

The diagnostic test checks for DNS and Hotspot server accessibility, the default gateway, ISP home page and Internet connectivity.

The program runs basic tests only that can aid you in diagnosing connection issues.

TekWiFi is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. It even runs under Windows 8. Please note that it requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.51 to be installed on the system.

Interested users can download it from the developer’s website. (via)

Your first step will be to buy yourself a wireless transmitter that is suitable to act as a repeater. Most transmitters have the function to do this these days, so you should find one quite easily. It’s always recommended to buy a repeater that is the same make as your existing router to avoid compatibility problems, but this is optional and most makes will talk to others.

Once you’ve unboxed your repeater and switched it on, you’re going to want to log into your existing router. Do this by logging in the way you usually do, and enter your username and password. Now, all routers are different, but the setting you’re looking for is the SSID name, or the wireless network name. It may be under wireless settings. You need to note the existing name, or change the name to something that means something to you. You should also at this point check the mode or speed your wireless is operating at, and choose “auto” or the fastest speed your router will allow.

The next step is to check the security options. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to use “none”, but you should really use WEP or WPA2-Personal as your security, that way unauthorized people can’t log onto your network. If you do set up security, which is strongly advised, you’ll have to set up a password. You’ll need this for your repeater too, so write it down and don’t forget it.

Now you need to find a section that may be called “Wireless Repeating”, again each router is different, so you may need to search around until you find it. It should still be under the wireless settings section, and shouldn’t be too difficult to find. There will probably be a check box where you need to enable wireless repeating, as it’s not usually turned on as standard, and then most routers have two options. The first will be to use this router as a wireless repeater, and the other will be to use this router as a base station. As this is our main router, we’re going to select to use it as a base station. At this point you’ll probably going to need to enter the MAC address of the repeater you’re going to use. So look on the back of your new repeater and you should find a sticker with the MAC address. The MAC address is a unique hardware address of the repeater and will be 12 characters long. Enter this number into the router setup screen. Click “apply” or “save” and you’ve successfully set up your router to act as a repeater base station.

Configuring your Repeater

In part 1, we successfully set up our existing Internet router to act as a base station for wireless repeating. Remember, we’re doing this so we can extend our wireless Internet connection to other parts of the house or even into the back yard.

The next step is to configure our repeater so that it talks to the base station and repeats the signal. First of all, you’ll probably need to connect your computer to the back of your repeater using an Ethernet cable. This is because we haven’t configured anything on it yet, so we need some method of communication with the device.

You’ll have to read your device instructions to find out how to connect to your new repeater, but usually it’s just a case of using an Internet browser with a default username and password. You’ll find all these details in your instruction booklet. Once you’ve logged into the repeater, just as before with the base unit you’re going to need to find the wireless network setup screen.

You need to set up the wireless network with the same SSID name, or wireless network name, as your base unit. For the mode, or speed of the network, you should again choose the fastest speed your network can communicate at, or just choose auto. Finally, you need to set your repeater to have the same form of security as your base station. We’re choosing “none” for the time being, but later on you can come back to these settings and choose WEP or WPA-2. Once you’ve done all these things, you can save your settings and go back to the home screen of your repeater setup.

Just as in the base station setup, you now need to find the setting called “wireless repeating function” or something similar. You’ll need to check the box to turn on wireless repeating, but instead of choosing base station, this time we’re going to choose “wireless repeater”. At this stage, you’re going to need to give your repeater an IP address on your network. If your router is 10.0.0.2 (for example), you might want to give your repeater the next number in line, say 10.0.0.3. This will depend on your network and how many computers you already have set up. If in doubt, use a high number that isn’t likely to be already in use, such as 10.0.0.240.

The next step will be to type in the base station MAC address. In the same way the base station needs to know the hardware address of your repeater, your repeater needs to know the MAC address of the base station. Again, you can find this address on the back of your router. It will be 12 digits long.

Now we have all the information needed for our repeater set-up, we’re going to click on “apply” or “save”, and you’ve successfully set up your repeater. All you need to do now is move the repeater to somewhere where you want to extend the range of your network. Remember, it has to be within range of the base station as well.

This printer too though is pretty huge and not something you’d be at all comfortable having in your living room.  It’s limited too, requiring a USB or wired network connection.  What was really needed then was a smaller, better option.

Fortunate then that Samsung, along with various other pieces of review kit, sent me their new ML-1865W Mono Laser last week to test.  Now I was expecting a big, bulky and franky ugly printer to arrive.  Imagine my surprise then when a small sleek black box arrived, measuring only 341 x 224 x 184 mm.

This printer is undeniably two things, dinky and lovely.  It’s no bigger than a typical inkjet printer when closed up, and the high-quality piano black plastic body means it wouldn’t look bad in anybody’s home office or living room.

I was keen then to see if a laser printer this small could actually perform.  The first test was in connecting it wirelessly to my network.  The printer can be attached directly to a computer via USB, but can also connect via WiFi to your home or small-office network.  It does this though the pressing of only two buttons, one on the printer and one on your router (both called WPS).  This would, theoretically, pair the devices almost instantly.

Suffice to say I was slightly sceptical at this claim, but the printer connected effortlessly to my TalkTalk home router and was ready and available on the network in around ten seconds.  Eager to make sure this wasn’t a fluke, I took the printer to a neighbour where their BT Home Hub flatly refused to acknowledge the printer’s existence.  This I don’t think is a fault with the printer itself, as it will be designed to work in a standards-compliant way.  It would involve a probably lengthy call to your ISP’s technical support however and some tinkering in your router’s administration settings to get it working.  This might just be too much for some people who might just give up and connect it via USB instead.

The driver install is simple enough, even with the printer connected via WiFi, though this could cause some issues if you are using the printer with Windows XP.  Alas I wasn’t in a position to be able to test this scenario as all my computers run Windows 7 and I’m not mad enough to put XP back on them!

The true test of a printer is in it’s speed, noise and print quality.  Samsung claim the ML-1865W has a startup time of 8.5 seconds and then, oddly, don’t claim any figure for a page per minute (ppm) speed.  I thought this odd and perhaps an indication that the printer would be slow.  To test it I threw my Windows 7 Power Users Guide at it, a graphics-heavy PDF running to 170 pages.

True to their word, within 10 seconds the first page began to appear, this first page being the cover with full graphics on it.  The printer then speedily churned out the rest of the book at around 20 pages per minute, which is very impressive for a small, low cost machine.

The quality was excellent as well and overall I’m very impressed, it was very quiet too, in fact probably the quietest printer I’ve ever used.  Elsewhere there’s a 150 sheet tray and a 100 sheet capacity output tray.  The printer will print graphics and text at 1200 x 1200 dpi and connects to your wireless network by 802.11 b, g or n.

Overall then the ML-1865W is a lovely printer to have.  It’s quiet, quick and attractive with excellent print results and can be bought online for as little as $69.99 in the US and £80 in the UK (at least these were the cheapest prices I could find).

The only downfall with this printer is the lack of support with some routers, and it might be a good idea to check with Samsung if your particular router is supported and, if not, with your ISP how easy it is to get it set up in the router’s administration interface.  This aside though if you’re after a monochrome laser for a home or home office, it’s a great unit to get and a bargain at just $70.  8/10.

You can buy the printer for instance at Amazon for that price: Samsung Electronics ML-1865W Wireless Monochrome Printer

Virtual Router is another application released a few days ago as beta that makes use of the virtual Wifi options in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Unlike Connectify though it has been released at Codeplex which suggests that the program will remain free even after it has been released in a final version.

The program’s interface contains only a few options. The Start Virtual Router button being the most important. This button is only active if the computer uses a supported wireless adapter. Other options include changing the network name, password (recommended as the default password is always the same). Virtual Router uses WPA2 Encryption to provide a solid protection for the wireless network.

Virtual Router can be downloaded from the program’s Codeplex page. It is only compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 and requires a compatible wireless adapter.

Wireless Migrator, a software program for the Windows operating system, comes to the rescue. The portable software program can be used to backup and restore wireless networks easily. All that needs to be done to backup the wireless settings of a computer system is to execute the program after downloading and unpacking it. It will automatically scan for configured wireless networks and save them to the same directory.

The filename will usually be RestoreWireless.wnb which can be executed on the target computer to install all wireless profiles on that system as well. This will add all wireless networks to that computer system as well without having to setup and configure these manually.

So, a very interesting question is how does such technology work?

They consult a service called Skyhook Wireless. They drive around settlements in several countries and record the GPS co-ordinates of where they pick up certain wireless access points, so when users send the access point’s MAC to them, it can return the co-ordinates. Many areas aren’t covered but if you would still like to use it, and let others use it, one can manually add details to the system. The same system is used to correct erroneous listings.

Many services already make use of WiFi-based location services.

For example, GPS units may struggle to provide an accurate location indoors or in an urban environment, but Skyhook Wireless doesn’t have this problem. Software like Google Maps on the iPhone use WiFi-based location in such scenarios.

Several online websites also use WiFi-based location services to return information based on the locality. Some are social networking, like brightkite and Fire Eagle to local search, although these services tend to be American. MyLoki is another service which relies on geolocation, and this allows location data to be exported to RSS feeds, Facebook or even Twitter. It can also grab data from ‘channels’ and plot things nearby on a map. These ‘channels’ include everything from Starbucks coffee shops to geotagged photos, Yelp reviews and cinemas.

Google Gears uses its own geolocation service, which websites like ITN use, but this is much worse than Geode/Skyhook, being accurate for me to about 150 miles instead of 15 meters!

Skyhook-based locations are built into the iPhone, the Opera web-browser and Mozilla Geode.

Privacy concerns are put to ease as data is only sent if you confirm the website can have access to it, and the software lets you specify how accurate a location you’re willing to send.

The idea of geolocation and WiFi positioning is fantastic. Eventually, it will allow you to open your laptop and then share your location with others, should you choose, or find the nearest restaurant in a distant city!

FON allows people to buy a wireless router from them for €30. They then share their WiFi with other Fon users and gain access to other Fon users’ connections.

Whilst many FON users are in residential areas, a few exist in public and commercial ones; there are dozens in Central London. This may rise as BT now integrates FON in their ‘Home Hub’ routers. Neuf Cegetel made a similar move.

They run a scheme which allows their users to profit. They can charge non-FON users a nominal fee to use their WiFi, so it could be extremely profitable in a central location!

La Fonera, the name of their router, transmits two SSIDs. One is encrypted, for your own private use, and one is open, for others to connect to.

If you’re interested, leave a comment to that effect and I can send you a promocode to get a €10 discount on the router.

2Hotspot is a free software that can create all kinds of wireless hotspots. Each 2hotspot network is comprised of a controller software installed on the main computer, the so called Location Management Portal which is used to create and manage the hotspot on a website and the End User Portal which can be used by end users to obtain Internet access.

The service makes use of Microsoft Microsoft Windows Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) and either a wireless router or wifi card. The online help of the wireless hotspots creator walks you through the process of installing the software.

It basically boils down to the following four installing steps: Preparing the Internet and Private Connections, Configuring Internet Connection Sharing, Testing Connectivity and installing the 2hotspot controller.

Update: The 2Hotspot website is no longer reachable. While it may look like technical issues on their side, the site has not been available for some time now which seems to suggest that there is more to it than a brief down time. Windows users looking to create wireless hotspots can look at Connectify instead, a program that allows them to do just that, albeit only under Windows 7 and newer Microsoft operating systems.

In case you are wondering, HandyWi is the application that can be installed on many Nokia mobile phones including the Nokia N78, Nokia N95 and the N93. A list of supported devices can be found at the developers homepage.

The process is pretty simple. The HandyWi software has to be installed on the mobile phone which will alert the user whenever a free WiFi spot has been discovered. The user can then connect to that spot and start using services like VOIP or Internet surfing for free.

This works pretty well in combination with Notebooks as well especially if your Notebook’s wireless card is not supported by the usual applications like Netstumbler or Easy WiFi Radar.

HandyWi features:

• Filtering of hotspots, separated view for public WLAN networks
• HandyWi clearly shows which access point is secure and which is not
• Single internet access point (HandyWi APN) for all applications (mail, web browser, char etc.)
• Easy account management, several user accounts possible (scratch card, prepaid etc.)
• Access to the location based media information, loaded each time you connect (works on selected WLAN networks only)
• Automatic hotspot discovery and alert feature
• Automatic connection to the hotspot which has stronger signal
• Secure RSA encrypted communication with HandyWi server
• Automatic application startup after install and on boot

HandyWi works pretty well and can be installed directly or by downloading it to the PC first.

It displays a radar like image with different colors dots. Green dots mark free wireless connections while red and yellow ones mark inaccessible ones. Once a green spot has been discovered by the software it automatically tries to connect to that Wireless access point to access the Internet.

It’s opening the default browser and loading a test website. A message stating the success will be shown if the connection was successful. It is really amazing how easy it is to find open wireless access points in towns. Should be harder if you are living in a rural area though.

I would not advise to check the mail from such a spot though unless encryption is being used. It’s not likely but possible that someone is using the open access point to snoop on the data of everyone who is connecting to it. Easy WiFi radar is available for Windows and Pocket PCs.

1. Mac Filtering

Mac Filtering does not protect against the forgery of a mac address, which is terribly easy using a network sniffer. It still could be a valuable line of defense against neighbours and kids who are only able to push buttons and don´t understand the concept.

2. SSID Hiding

This is hiding SSID beaconing on the access point while four other mechanisms are able to broadcast the SSID.

3. LEAP Authentication

It relies on its users and their passwords. LEAP requires strong passwords to be relativly secure and we all know about the passwords of normal day users.

4. Disable DHCP

DHCP allows the automatic assignment of IP addresses. If you disable it you have to assign all IPs manually. It is not taking longer than 10 seconds to figure out the IP scheme of any network and assign the own IP address.

5. Antenna Placement

This is pretty useless as well, telling everyone to move their antenna in the midth of the room and running them with little power. The antenna of the access point is not the only factor that determines if it can be reached, the antenna of the client is also a factor. What if the hacker has a bigger antenna that still reaches your access point ?

6. Just use 802.11a or Bluetooth

This has nothing to do with security, those are just different standards.