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Many of the points in this article are only relevant to solutions that network wirelessly, with poorly implemented custom RF solutions at that. WPA2-supporting
by wyc 10y ago
Many of the points in this article are only relevant to solutions that network wirelessly, with poorly implemented custom RF solutions at that. WPA2-supporting devices are very secure against many of these attacks, except for RF jamming. Is WPA2 more expensive for the device to implement? Yes, but this is the kind of performance trade-off you have to make if you want security.
If you're serious about home security, then you may want to hardwire your devices and VLAN isolate your security/control network to give some semblance of closed-circuitness. I will always hardwire when possible and concentrate on physical attack vectors.
When you're going up against someone who knows how to use a spectrum analyzer and jammer, then you might have bigger problems.
- floatrock 10y agoI don't disagree with your main parts, but this wasn't a "poorly implemented custom RF solution." This was a lightweight wireless protocol and system from TI, exactly designed for building relatively simple and cheap RF products. In the same way that web developers grab Bootstrap and get a beautiful-enough site working out of the box, this company found a Bootstrap-for-wireless-communications framework and chip from TI. What they didn't do is customize it for their needs (security-hardening) nor use any non-default configuration. Point is, using a pre-built building-block component to speed up your go-to-market isn't inherently bad. In fact, you might even argue that an alarm company who rolled their own fly-by-night wireless protocol would raise more eyebrows.
- wyc 10y agoGood point. I wish we knew how to convince vendors to use secure defaults and actually care about their users' security. Public shaming seems to be one way that's working, so thanks for the post! :)
- Yaggo 10y agoRF jamming can be detected with heartbeat protocol (no heartbeat -> alarm). Biggest downside of WPA2/wifi is its energy consumption compared to "lightweight custom RF protocols", making it impractical for battery powered devices. (Btw, I'm building DIY home automation around esp8266-based iTead Sonoff sensors.)