Security management Toolkit

Story: Attack cracks Wi-Fi crypto in a minute

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Switch your encryption method, but don't panic

The advice to start using WPA2 is sound, assuming all the equipment you have supports it. Some older notebooks may not. If you can't use a more secure protocol, there's probably little need to worry.

One thing that's missing from this story is the level of resources or knowledge that was needed to break the crypto this quickly. If you need large amounts of computing power it's unlikely you'll be able to mount this attack on the target of your choice. Remember that you need to be in range of both the access point to make this attack work which, assuming your network is one in a business premises, may not be as simple as it sounds. If you're using a public WiFi access point it won't have encryption turned on anyway.

If you think your corporate network is likely to come under attack, then as well as wireless threats, you should ensure that a wired attacker can't do the same job. Getting a job as a cleaner in your offices is probably the easiest way of hacking into your network, not largely theoretical breaks in encryption algorithms like this.

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