Wardrivers Can Still Easily Crack 70% of Wi-Fi Passwords

guest · Oct 26, 2021

Wardrivers Can Still Easily Crack 70% of Wi-Fi Passwords
Weaknesses in the current Wi-Fi standard and poorly chosen passwords
October 26, 2021
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/wardrivers-can-still-crack-70-of-wifi-passwords

The same standard that allows wireless devices to remain connected and roam between access points also allows attackers to easily collect critical Wi-Fi keys that can later be hashed to find Wi-Fi network passwords, a researcher found in a wardriving experiment.

Ido Hoorvitch, a security researcher at identity and access management provider CyberArk, found he could recover the network passwords for more than 70% of the networks he scanned merely by using information collected as he pedaled his bike — and sometimes walked or drove — along the streets in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Click to expand...

He used a homemade wireless scanner based on a $50 network card connected to a laptop running Ubuntu Linux, plus the Hcxdumptool tool available on GitHub, to collect Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) packets from nearby networks.

"All of us know that passwords are problematic — they are too hard to remember. And if they are easy to remember, then they are too easy to crack," Hoorvitch says. "What is special about this research is that it changed the state from a hypothesis to an empirical experiment. We now know that the Wi-Fi password for most of the networks is really not secure enough."
Click to expand...

Wireless networks continue to be a weak point for many consumers and enterprises.

In addition, cybersecurity specialists have warned that weak, default, or easily guessable passwords put wireless networks at risk. With more employees working from home, consumer Wi-Fi networks have also become a gateway to corporate data.

"The threat of a compromised Wi-Fi network presents serious risk to individuals, small business owners and enterprises alike," the CyberArk blog post stated. "And as we’ve shown, when an attacker can crack more than 70% of Wi-Fi networks in a major global city with relative ease, greater attention must be paid to protecting oneself."
Click to expand...

CyberArk: Cracking WiFi at Scale with One Simple Trick

To test this hypothesis, I gathered 5,000 WiFi network hashes as my study group by strolling the streets in Tel Aviv with WiFi sniffing equipment. At the end of the research, I was able to break more than 70% of the sniffed WiFi networks passwords with relative ease. The Tel Aviv Metropolitan area has more than 3.9 million people — you can imagine what the numbers would have been had we not cut our research off at 5,000 WiFi networks.

In this blog, I demonstrate how easily (you do not need a cracking rig) and with little equipment unsecure WiFi passwords can be cracked, thus hacking the WiFi network .At the end, we will reveal statistics of the cracked hashes and explain how to defend your network from this type of attack. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that we know and understand the cracking method to form an adequate defense.
Click to expand...

Melionix · Oct 26, 2021

Considering WiFi passwords are literally listed at the bottom of routers these days, it surprises me that 70% of people even know how to change it.

Floyd 57 · Oct 27, 2021

My ISP technicians changed it from admin to admin1234, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rasheed187 · Oct 31, 2021

Melionix said: ↑

Considering WiFi passwords are literally listed at the bottom of routers these days, it surprises me that 70% of people even know how to change it.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I have never understood why there isn't a more powerful way to protect WIFI. Are passwords really the only option, and why is it hard to implement MFA?

Log in or Sign up

Wardrivers Can Still Easily Crack 70% of Wi-Fi Passwords

guest Guest

Melionix Registered Member

Floyd 57 Registered Member

Rasheed187 Registered Member

Log in or Sign up

Wardrivers Can Still Easily Crack 70% of Wi-Fi Passwords

guest Guest

Melionix Registered Member

Floyd 57 Registered Member

Rasheed187 Registered Member

Useful Searches