Manufacturers of various Wi-Fi-enabled equipment and software developers for this equipment release patches for Frag Attacks problems.
Let me remind you that last week the details of twelve vulnerabilities were disclosed, collectively called Frag Attacks (Fragmentation and aggregation attacks). These problems were discovered and described by the well-known information security expert Mathy Vanhoef.
All Wi-Fi enabled devices (computers, smartphones and smart devices) released after 1997 are vulnerable to Frag Attacks.
Bugs allow an attacker in range of Wi-Fi to collect information about the owner of the device and execute malicious code. Even worse, the vulnerabilities are relevant even if WEP and WPA protection is active.
The researcher demonstrates the attack on unpatched Windows 7 in the video below.
Vanhof writes that the three vulnerabilities are design flaws in the Wi-Fi 802.11 standard, which are related to the aggregation and fragmentation functions of frames, while other bugs are programming problems in various Wi-Fi products.
Fortunately, Wanhof said, most vulnerabilities are difficult to exploit, as they either require user interaction or the attack would only be possible using highly non-standard network settings.
On his website, Vanhof listed a number of protective measures that users should take. The simplest defence is to ensure that websites are only accessible via HTTPS, which blocks attacks.
Nevertheless, work on fixing vulnerabilities has been activelly going on and for quite some time. Over the past nine months, Wanhof and the WiFi Alliance have worked together to patch Wi-Fi standards and have worked with device vendors to deliver patches as soon as possible.
If last week there was very little information about patches, now many large vendors and developers have prepared statements and security bulletins:
- Aruba Networks
- Arista
- Canonical (Ubuntu)
- Cisco
- Debian
- Dell
- Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI)
- Intel
- Juniper Networks
- Lenovo
- Microsoft (CVE-2020-24588 и CVE-2020-24587)
- NETGEAR
- RUCKUS
- Sierra Wireless
- Synology
- SUSE
- Wi-Fi Alliance
- Zyxel
Let me remind you that I also reported that the Kr00k problem threatens devices with Qualcomm and MediaTek Wi-Fi chips.
