Thank you for the link. I appreciate it. After reading through it, I am beginning to see where I may have misunderstood what you were getting at. When I was attempting to get into the router, with WZC set open, and encryption was enabled on my router, but not on my nic, there was no connecting. And with a wrong key, no connecting. BUT - one thing that I did not do, was attempt to connect to the router via WZC with the encryption turned ON but with no key supplied. I always had a key loaded should the encryption be enabled. I will test encryption on with no key when I get home tonight and see what happens. Unfortunately, I will have to flash back down to the 4.50.6 firmware, BUT I'm curious. Again, thank you for the link... -----Original Message----- From: Steve Scherf [mailto:steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 11:00 AM To: Robert Thompson Jr. Cc: Steve Scherf; bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Serious flaw in Linksys wireless AP password security FYI, the problem I reported has been reproduced over at Broadband Reports: http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,14141344 -- Steve Scherf steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 03:42:03PM -0700, Robert Thompson Jr. wrote: > From: "Robert Thompson Jr." <rthompson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Subject: RE: Serious flaw in Linksys wireless AP password security > Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 15:42:03 -0700 > To: Steve Scherf <bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > When upgrading my WRT54GS (v 1.0) router to the 4.50.6 and 4.70.6 > firmwares, I experienced no such authentication problems. > > If the router was set wide open, I could connect without authentication. > > As soon as I specified WPA-PSK on the router, in order for me to > connect via the NIC I absolutely had to have the WZC configured for > WPA-PSK (TKIP or AES accordingly) and HAD to have the correct password > configured as well. (And the SSID of course...) > > If the proper settings were not configured into the WZC after enabling > WPA-PSK, I was not able to connect to the router. > > I am certain of these details as I was trying to get the WPA2 feature > to work on my NIC that didn't have WPA2 certified drivers at the time. > I ended up trying every damned near possible configuration before > realizing that it was my drivers that weren't working on my NIC before > having to settle with just WPA until Linksys updated their drivers on > their website... > > Though, since we are on the subject of the WRT54GS router. The 4.50.6 > and 4.70.6 firmwares enable the WPA2 feature. AND Linksys was kind > enough to finally release WPA2 certified drivers for the WPC54GS NIC's > (and I am assuming the WPC54G) as well. So if you haven't updated, > you may want to condsider doing so for the increased security. > > Rob. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Steve Scherf [mailto:bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxx]=20 > Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 12:53 AM > To: bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Serious flaw in Linksys wireless AP password security > > It appears that firmware version 4.50.6 for the Linksys WRT54GS > (hardware version 1) wireless router allows wireless clients to > connect and use the network without actually authenticating. With WPA > Personal/TKIP authentication enabled, the unit allows both clients > using encryption with the correct settings and key, and clients not > using any encryption. It disallows clients attempting to use > encryption with the wrong settings and/or key. > > In other words, even if you think you've secured your wireless network > from unauthorized access, anyone can access it. It actually shows up > as having no password security on a Macstumbler scan, which is how I > noticed the problem. > I verified that anyone can access the network without needing to know > the key. > > I did not check security modes other than WPA/TKIP. Other modes may > have different behavior. Changing the "Authentication Type" setting > had no effect on this problem. I believe it should be set to "Shared > Key", but the setting used does not appear to matter. > > I only verified the problem on firmware 4.50.6. It is unknown if other > firmware versions exhibit the problem. However, at least one older > firmware does not exhibit the problem, as my router functioned > correctly until I updated to 4.50.6. > > The problem appears to be fixed in version 4.70.6. No expliclit notice > of this problem or the fix appears in the release notes for version > 4.70.6. > Strangely, the "Authentication Type" must be set to "Auto" for the > unit to function properly. Should it be set to "Shared Key", which one > might expect to be the correct value, the wireless functionality > appears to be entirely disabled. > > It is unknown if this problem is seen with other hardware versions, or > with other models. I suspect it may, given the similarity between many > of the Linksys models and their firmware. > > > -- > Steve Scherf > bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxx
