Flaw in Wi-Fi Standard Can Enable SSID Confusion Attacks
Researchers at Belgium's KU Leuven discovered a fundamental design flaw in the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard that gives attackers a way to trick victims into connecting with a less secure wireless network than the one to which they intended to connect.
Such attacks can expose victims to higher risk of traffic interception and manipulation, according to VPN review site Top10VPN, which collaborated with one of the KU Leuven researchers to release flaw details this week ahead of a presentation at an upcoming conference in Seoul, South Korea.
The flaw, assigned as CVE-2023-52424, affects all Wi-Fi clients across all operating systems. Affected Wi-Fi networks include those based on the widely deployed WPA3 protocol, WEP, and 802.11X/EAP. The researchers have proposed updates to the Wi-Fi standard and also methods that individuals and organizations can employ to mitigate risk.
