Does WPA2 security protocol sound like Chinese? The security of your WiFi depends on the

A group of researchers has identified a serious failure within the security protocol WPA2 , the system used to encrypt data through WiFi connections .This error could allow you to intercept data transmitted by computers and smartphones through wireless connections. Related

This error has been called 'Kracks Attacks' (or 'Key Reinstallation Attaks') and resides in the same standard of the WiFi protocol and not in specific products: in practice, it means that almost all WiFi access points, smartphones and computers could be affected by the problem, with serious risks especially for Android devices from version 6.0 onwards and with some distributions of the Linux operating system.

Simplifying a lot, the failure affects the security key management system that exchange devices using WPA2 when establishing a connection.In practice, such an attack does not allow those they do discover the password of the WiFi network or the keys used to encrypt the system through WPA2.The routers, that is, the devices to which the devices connect to access the Internet, are not directly attacked.However, if you can get a lot of information that passes through the WiFi network .

Problems with Android and Linux

On Android and Linux, things are complicated by the fact that the two systems do not ask for a new key to encrypt the data in each connection.The following video shows how the researchers managed to make an attack on a device Android, and then they were able to decode all the stolen data to their victim .

The system works in the case where the data transits through the HTTP protocol (the most common), while with the HTTPS protocol (a version that makes communication private and uses keys to encrypt it) gives different results , depending on how the protocol has been used.In Windows and MacOS, the problem exists, but it is mitigated by the fact that not all information packets can be easily decrypted.

Observations and doubts about the reliability of WPA2 have been circulating for a long time and some device manufacturers, especially routers, in recent weeks have started working on updates to solve the problem (some have already been ) The updating of the access points for WiFi, however, is not easy and in many cases there are no automatisms to do so.The update of Android smartphones and computers should be simpler, but it requires a minimum of user attention .