3 ms·
> A wireless network is essentially a hub, rather than a switched network, and as such all hosts on one leg of the network get to see all the packets transporte
by Total_Meltdown 15y ago
> A wireless network is essentially a hub, rather than a switched network, and as such all hosts on one leg of the network get to see all the packets transported through it no matter what their source or destination
The article claims that it works on WPA-2, but WPA-2 doesn't work the same way. WPA-2 uses individual encryption between the router and the device. This happens to be one of the biggest reasons it's recommended over unencrypted or WEP encryption, which are both passively sniffable. With WPA-2, you don't get all traffic on the network, you have to trick hosts on the network to explicitly send it to you.
To sniff WPA-2 traffic, this app must generate some kind of active MITM attack, probably ARP spoofing or flooding. I feel [very slightly] bad for the poor guy who tries this on his campus network and gets nailed in about four seconds.
- hannibalhorn 15y agoAssuming you mean WPA2-PSK, it's easily sniffable as well. You can start up a copy of Wireshark and enter the network password and you'll see everything, as long as you capture the initial key negotiation traffic when a client connects to the network.
- dspillett 15y agoIf you connect before the eavesdropper then WPA-2 will protect you as you will have a per-client key by that point. But if the eavesdropper was present on the network as you joined I believe it is possible to intercept that key during the negotiation process, due to flaws in the design of that process.