WPA3 Certification Open For Business

[thiggins]

The Wi-Fi Alliance yesterday formally introduced Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WPA3 wireless security, the intended replacement for the less-secure WPA2, which is supported on virtually all of today's Wi-Fi devices.

Like WPA2, WPA3 is not an IEEE standard, but a specification and certification program created by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Also like its predecessor, WPA3 comes in Personal and Enterprise flavors, the latter optionally supporting 192 bit encryption.

The Alliance offers no summary of the differences between WPA2 and WPA3. But this DarkReading post from today offers a good description of WPA3's key features. This post by Mathy Vanhoef provides much-needed details about WPA3. And this newer post describes what the actual WPA3 Certification announced today really supports.

Also announced was Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect, which in earlier descriptions of WPA3, was part of that specification. It's now been broken into its own certification, however, because Easy Connect is focused on securely connecting devices with "limited or no" display. This would most commonly be done by scanning a QR code on the device using a smartphone or tablet.

You'll be able to run mixed networks of WPA2 and WPA3 devices, once routers and APs supporting WPA3 appear. Eventually, however, WPA3 will become mandatory to access 11ac and 11ax features, just as WPA2/AES is required to access 802.11ac's higher link rates now.

Don't expect to see firmware or driver upgrades enabling WPA3 for your current collection of devices. WPA3 requires new hardware, so you'll need to buy new stuff.

The Alliance's Certified Product Finder already has checkboxes up for WPA3 and Wi-Fi Easy Connect, but no devices have been certified yet.

[Wi-Fi Alliance press release.]

 

[Makaveli]

Finally.

Now just waiting for Asus to release a model that support this and have a viable upgrade path.

 

[thiggins]

have a viable upgrade path.

What do you mean by this? The upgrade path is: buy a new router and clients to go with it.

 

[coxhaus]

So are all wireless routers obsolete? Good thing I run a wired only router.

 

[Makaveli]

What do you mean by this? The upgrade path is: buy a new router and clients to go with it.

I understand that I just mean it an upgrade path for me since I've been waiting for this to be released instead of upgrading to a more powerful router right now.

 

[thiggins]

So are all wireless routers obsolete? Good thing I run a wired only router.

No. They're just less secure than WPA3 will be. But you're running with WPA2 now (I assume) and you ain't dead yet.

You guys are old enough to remember the WEP -> WPA transition, right? And how throughput went to crap when you used WPA until they moved the encryption code from the driver to an embedded processor in the Wi-Fi MAC.

We lived through that and we'll survive this transition too.

 

[Jim Salter]

No. They're just less secure than WPA3 will be. But you're running with WPA2 now (I assume) and you ain't dead yet.

You guys are old enough to remember the WEP -> WPA transition, right? And how throughput went to crap when you used WPA until they moved the encryption code from the driver to an embedded processor in the Wi-Fi MAC.

We lived through that and we'll survive this transition too.

Nope. Am dead already. *ded*

I seriously might be a little salty that a single fell swoop just rendered pretty much every single wifi device I've ever tested obsolete. Granted we'll still be using the obsolete stuff for a bit, but...

How sure are you that this stuff can't ever be implemented in firmware? Seems pretty crazy to suddenly obsolete every single chipset on the market for what seems to amount to a mediocre-at-best improvement.

 

[DancinJack]

Nope. Am dead already. *ded*

I seriously might be a little salty that a single fell swoop just rendered pretty much every single wifi device I've ever tested obsolete. Granted we'll still be using the obsolete stuff for a bit, but...

How sure are you that this stuff can't ever be implemented in firmware? Seems pretty crazy to suddenly obsolete every single chipset on the market for what seems to amount to a mediocre-at-best improvement.

That's...not true. WPA2 devices are not "obsolete." They're just not as secure as WPA3. It's not like you won't be able to use them for years to come. Let alone it'll take years for businesses and others to upgrade to WPA3 hardware. Can people please stop saying obsolete. It's not the right word choice. Please, stop.

 

[Jim Salter]

Well, not yet anyway. But when the next KRACK hits, what are the odds anybody's going to bother fixing it on WPA2 now that nice and shiny WPA3 is here, and everybody wants to sell their nice and shiny new WPA3 devices anyway?

 

[DancinJack]

Well, not yet anyway. But when the next KRACK hits, what are the odds anybody's going to bother fixing it on WPA2 now that nice and shiny WPA3 is here, and everybody wants to sell their nice and shiny new WPA3 devices anyway?

Considering there are literally billions of devices that will be on WPA2 forever, someone will do it. You think the whole world is just going to write off everything that is out there now? I don't think so

 

[umarmung]

How sure are you that this stuff can't ever be implemented in firmware? Seems pretty crazy to suddenly obsolete every single chipset on the market for what seems to amount to a mediocre-at-best improvement.

Not even remotely close to a mediocre-at-best improvement. This is the largest improvement in WiFi security, especially in enterprise, for over a decade. It is also night and day in security for open hotspots - so much so that this part is being rushed to market.

1. Simultaneous Authentication of Equals handshake (SAE): offline dictionary attack resistant + forward secrecy
2. Device Provisioning Protocol (DPP): WPS replacement using public keys
   
3. Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE): encryption by default for open networks, i.e. hotspots, defeating passive attacks
4. Enterprise Commercial National Security Algorithms suite (CNSA): increased key sizes such as AES-GCM-256 & elliptic curve crypto 384-bit curves & SHA384 & RSA keys 3072+ == 192-bit security symmetric
5. Protected Management Frames (PMF): post-KRACK vulnerability WPA2 and WPA3 requires support for PMF, preventing deauthentication attacks where APs can be forced to disconnect clients, a form of active attack

This is still significantly behind the most up to date security standards, but the previous models are so weak in multiple areas, this is a very large security improvement.

The last, PMF, can be quite easily retrofitted into existing devices via firmware. The rest includes new encryption and new uses of encryption, especially heavy in the case of CNSA.

Economically, it makes little sense why manufacturers would choose to take on costly viability assessments and re-optimization within very tight hardare restrictions for most consumer and SOHO gear just to then offer it all as a free upgrade in firmware that only a fraction of its customer base may install. The increased resource usage is not in any way free, either labor, increased power requirements, increased operational requirements (temperature increases), increased validation and certification costs.

Furthermore, even if sections of the new standard (other than PMF), could be implemented for a specific product or product line, it would be extremely unlikely all of them could be incorporated for the device to be WPA3 certifiable or even marketable as such. For consumer gear, lack of such clear differentiation will not help market a product.

Finally, there is the perverse reputational risk of effectively choosing a mixed/segmented product line based on customer firmware uptake, then supporting it. That may be fine for enterprise and some SOHO customers. But for consumers, fielding entirely new, certified product lines earlier than competitors may be the safer business option.

So, my belief is that far more likely, just like the previous WEP-WPA transition, there will be a slew of new hardware re-releases followed by further hardware-optimized releases, maximizing profitability and taking advantage of new resources like modern commodity chips.

 

[Jim Salter]

Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE): encryption by default for open networks, i.e. hotspots, defeating passive attacks

Can you elaborate on this one? How will this defeat a typical wifi pineapple scenario in which an AP just yes "yep that's me" to any beacon request made by a STA?

 

[umarmung]

Can you elaborate on this one? How will this defeat a typical wifi pineapple scenario in which an AP just yes "yep that's me" to any beacon request made by a STA?

That's not a passive attack

At the moment, as I'm sure you are aware, you can just listen for every single packet on an open network.

 

[sfx2000]

No. They're just less secure than WPA3 will be. But you're running with WPA2 now (I assume) and you ain't dead yet.

You guys are old enough to remember the WEP -> WPA transition, right? And how throughput went to crap when you used WPA until they moved the encryption code from the driver to an embedded processor in the Wi-Fi MAC.

The transition will be more similar to the WPA to WPA2 move - and WPA3 devices must support WPA2, so the existing investment in clients/AP's is protected.

 

[Razor512]

During the transition period where most APs will have to use both WPA 2 and 3, is there any possible risk to a downgrade attack, or is it completely resistant to any form of downgrade attack if an attacker is actively interfering while a client is attempting to connect to the AP?

 

[sfx2000]

Can you elaborate on this one? How will this defeat a typical wifi pineapple scenario in which an AP just yes "yep that's me" to any beacon request made by a STA?

It doesn't - WiFi pineapple MITM attacks will continue to be a problem... as just like WPA2, one can essentially take a client down to an appropriate level for, ahem, forensic analysis...

Where OWE comes in to play is that unlike current implementations, where an Open network, everything is in the clear, on a WPA3 Open Network, you will have a temporary PMK, and each WPA3 client associated will have their own temporary one, so that solves the issue of just firing up a client STA in monitor mode and sucking down everyone's traffic on the BSS

Not perfect, but it does help...

 

[sfx2000]

During the transition period where most APs will have to use both WPA 2 and 3, is there any possible risk to a downgrade attack, or is it completely resistant to any form of downgrade attack if an attacker is actively interfering while a client is attempting to connect to the AP?

I foresee this as an implementation detail - challenge here is that 802.11n/11ac require WPA2 - WPA3 wasn't around when the 11ac spec was passed, so all 802.11n/11ac capable AP's need to support both.

11n/11ac - WPA1 was not officially supported, but many AP's can run in mixed mode, mainly to support legacy clients running 11g/11n or hopefully not 11b

 

[sfx2000]

One of the other things in Vanhoef's review - moving forward at some point, WPA2 certification will require Protected Management Frames - not sure how they're going to handle WPA2 legacy, as there are many 11n/11ac client stations that do not support PMF...

 

[sfx2000]

The Alliance offers no summary of the differences between WPA2 and WPA3. But this DarkReading post from today offers a good description of WPA3's key features. This post by
Mathy Vanhoef provides much-needed details about WPA3.

Vanhoef has an updated, yet separate, post...

https://www.mathyvanhoef.com/2018/06/wpa3-missed-opportunity.html

 

[Jim Salter]

That's not a passive attack

At the moment, as I'm sure you are aware, you can just listen for every single packet on an open network.

I suppose I didn't really catch just how "passive" you meant.

Yes I'm aware that any packet may be inspected on an open network; this is much less of a concern than it used to be due to the proliferation of TLS/SSL on (almost) all the things. Right now DNS is the remaining really weak point, but even that's rapidly evolving.

As far as I'm concerned, until pineapple-style attacks are nerfed nothing's changed much.