This policy change started in 2014 and was given more weight in 2017, setting most of us up to weather the KRACK storm mostly unharmed - as long as we're using web browsers such as Safari, Chrome, or Firefox. When Google changes search result algorithms, web publishers pay attention. Plain old HTTP is becoming rare these days, as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) started rewarding sites with higher rankings in search results when they use the secure version instead. Let's say you skip the lockbox but wrap each one of your sensitive messages into its own uncrackable safety pouch - either way, your data will get to its destination unread and unharmed. Make sure that the apps and web pages you read are using encrypted HTTPS links, identified by padlock icons in the address bar and network addresses starting with HTTPS:// instead of HTTP://. Here, your system is secure as soon as the VPN connection has been set up and activated. All the attackers can read is another form of separately encrypted data. It's like putting your sensitive data in a tamper-proof lockbox before sending it across town in the backseat of a random Uber. ![]() Set up a virtual private network, or VPN, connecting your device through a secure link running on top of the unsecure Wi-Fi network. This way, there's no radio traffic for other devices to listen in on. Skip Wi-Fi and connect using a network cable instead, via an Ethernet or USB plug. Privacy-craving network users have found several ways to work around such unsecure connection environments: That's no different from connecting your smartphone to a password-free Wi-Fi network in your favorite coffee shop, where the guest network doesn't even attempt to set up a secure WPA2 session. Since KRACK affects all Wi-Fi devices currently on the market, every WPA2 connection is suspect until further notice. 16 and will be further clarified at the Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas next month. Wi-Fi device makers were notified in August. ![]() In researching this novel attack technique, the researchers found that "every Wi-Fi device is vulnerable to some variant of our attacks," and Android version 6.0 (Marshmallow) was subject to particularly "devastating" effects. The vulnerability was discovered by computer science professor Frank Piessens and postdoctoral researcher Mathy Vanhoef at the University of Leuven, Belgium, several weeks ago. No KRACK attacks have been reported in the wild yet, but they will surely come. It's all plain text after that, as if you hadn't logged on to create a secure connection at all. All of this is Bad News(tm) for the victim of such attacks, basically wiping out the encryption from your secure connection. The attacker can then decrypt the encrypted data flow, start a whole new connection with new security settings, or erase the original encryption key altogether. In simple terms, the new attack works by sending many network messages using the same supposedly unique single-use message number, confusing the WPA2 protocol in several dangerous ways.
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