New APIs Suggest WPA3 Wi-Fi Security Support Coming Soon to Windows 10

Nov 12, 2018

Windows 10 users don’t have to wait much longer for the
support of latest WPA3 Wi-Fi security
standard ^[1], a new blog post from
Microsoft apparently revealed.

The third version of Wi-Fi Protected Access, in-short WPA3, is
the next generation of the wireless security protocol that has been
designed to make it harder for attackers to hack WiFi
password ^[2].

WPA3 was officially launched earlier this year, but the new WiFi
security standard won’t arrive overnight. Most device manufacturers
could take months to get their new routers and networking devices
certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance to support WPA3.

Meanwhile, technology providers have already started working on
software and firmware updates to support the new WPA3 standard,
including Microsoft.

WPA3-Personal (SAE) Support in Windows 10

Though Microsoft hasn’t yet officially announced WPA3 support for
its Windows 10 operating system, new APIs introduced in the newly
released Windows 10 SDK
Preview build 18272 ^[3], as marked in the
screenshot below, indicates that Windows users would soon be
getting support for the new protocol.

WPA3-Personal leverages Simultaneous Authentication of Equals
(SAE), a secure key establishment protocol between devices, to
prevents attackers from decrypting old captured traffic even if
they learn the password of a network.

Windows 10 Software Development Kit (SDK) is a collection of
headers, libraries, metadata, and tools from Microsoft to help
Windows application developers build apps for Windows 10 platform.

The SDK build 18272 supports the newly released Windows 10 Insider
Preview Build 18277 (also known as 19H1) that has been
designed to let developers and enthusiasts get early access to
upcoming features and improvements, and share their feedback with
the company.
^[4]

Besides this, Tim Cappalli, an engineer at Aruba Security, in a
tweet claimed ^[5] that he also
spotted WPA3-Personal (SAE) available in the Windows 10 Insider
build 18252.100 while manually configuring a wireless network.

Another Windows user confirmed ^[6] the WPA3-Personal
availability in the latest Insider build version but also mentioned
that it’s not currently working as intended.

Both frontend and API availabilities indicate that Microsoft is
actively working on a stable version of Windows 10 operating system
with WPA3 support.

Last month Wi-Fi Alliance also announced the next version of
WiFi standard, called 802.11ax (WiFi 6), along with a simpler naming
scheme that aims to make it easier for users to recognize which
WiFi version their devices support and run, helping them to keep
their devices up-to-date with the latest advanced WiFi
capabilities.
^[7]

References

^{^}
WPA3 Wi-Fi security standard
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
hack WiFi password
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
Windows 10 SDK Preview build 18272
(blogs.windows.com)
^{^}
Windows 10 Insider Preview Build
18277 (blogs.windows.com)
^{^}
claimed
(twitter.com)
^{^}
confirmed
(twitter.com)
^{^}
simpler naming scheme
(thehackernews.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

New APIs Suggest WPA3 Wi-Fi Security Support Coming Soon to Windows 10

WPA3-Personal (SAE) Support in Windows 10

References

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