Recent attack makes every Wi-Fi network prone to hacking

An encryption protocol WPA2 has recently been exposed and our modern day Wi-Fi routers are now defenseless and in danger.

WPA2 is a 13-year-old protocol that is supposed to protect the Wi-Fi router and other connected devices from hacking and malware attacks. Now, that protection has been cracked open. Since, the protocol was used to safeguard modern day Wi-Fi networks, any Wi-Fi network can now be violated easily, according to the researchers.

In layman terms, this cracking of WPA2 means that any hacker can now interrupt traffic, access passwords and go deep into the browsing history on the non-https websites. The hacker could easily obtain secret information including credit card numbers, passwords, photos, messages and any other important data on non-https websites, reported Tech Juice.

Every single Yahoo account was hacked

Researchers informed that the hacker could also inject and manipulate data on a compromised Wi-Fi network through which it can hijack devices for inserting ransomware or other malware onto systems.

Mathy Vanhoef who detected the glitch explained, “The attack works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks. The weaknesses are in the Wi-Fi standard itself, and not in individual products or implementations. Therefore, any correct implementation of WPA2 is likely affected.”

These issues are supposed to be kept forward in a conference at ACM in November. However, at present it is not clear if the security patch would be shipped or not and even if it is, it will take time to update all internet access point in the world.

As per Science Alert, in an FAQ, Vanhoef stated, “Changing the password of your Wi-Fi network does not prevent (or mitigate) the attack. Instead, you should make sure all your devices are updated, and you should also update the firmware of your router.”