Cisco issues advisory for wireless gear

Attack tool based on WPS vulnerability prompts notice to disable

Cisco has issued a security advisory on some of its wireless and unified communications products in response to attack tools that exploit a weakness in a protocol they use. The weakness was detailed by US-CERT in a Vulnerability Note last month.

The vulnerability is a hole in the Wi-Fi Alliance's Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) protocol when devices are operating in PIN External Registrar mode. Devices in this mode allow a WPS client to supply only the correct WPS PIN to configure their client on a secured network; but a vulnerability in the protocol may allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to brute force the WPS configuration PIN in a matter of hours.

The vulnerability is due to a flaw that allows an attacker to determine when the first 4-digits of the eight-digit PIN are known.  This reduces the PIN space from 10,000,000 possible values to 11,000 possible values, meaning an attacker could brute force the WPS PIN in as little as a few hours, the Cisco advisory states.

Cisco recommends disabling the WPS feature on its devices to prevent exploitation of this vulnerability. A list of the affected and unaffected Cisco devices is on the advisory, located here.

Exploit code and attack tools that expose the weakness within the WPS protocol have been released and are posted here.

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• Wi-Fi
• Wi-Fi Security
• Cisco security advisory
• vulnerability
• wireless security