Update Your Windows OS Today As “FRAG” Attacks Threaten WiFi Devices

…several tech companies have developed patches to counter future FragAttacks.

The same Belgian cybersecurity expert is responsible for several other WiFi-related vulnerabilities he has leaked. While the current WiFi loopholes he discovered are centred on anything related to WiFi connectivity — from cellular phone connection to router hosts, according to the Vanhoef FragAttack report.

The Belgian security expert, Mathy Vanhoef, added his new WiFi vulnerabilities to the existing collection of WiFi flaws — though he dubbed his latest the “FragAttack” or “fragmentation and aggregation attacks,” by details.

Vanhoef has developed a long-listed collection, a total of 12 different WiFi-related vulnerabilities. These loopholes serve as a potential tool to hack into a given device — while bad actors would rather use these tools with ill intents to cause attacks.

At the same time, FragAttack can also serve as a tool to leak user information, which could either be gotten from mobile or router devices. Meanwhile, nine of his discovered flaws depend on the given WiFi product — some WiFi manufacturers did not encrypt the security protocol of their products while programming the device.

Kathy Vanhoef developed a website he called FragAttack detailed with vital information in line with his findings. The rest of the flaws that complete his collection are centred on a bug — baked bugs that impact high-end WiFi — even WEP protocols are vulnerable to these bugs.

Nonetheless, FragAttack can be duly utilized by security experts — according to Vanhoef’s report, it requires a complex network setting that also requires active user interaction to access these flaws. 

Several WiFi manufacturers have reportedly developed patches to fix these flaws against possible FragAttacks — these companies include Juniper, Cisco, Lenovo, Microsoft, Intel, Samsung, Linux, Netgear, etc. Microsoft appears not to take chances with FragAttacks, the software company reportedly released three autonomous patches compatible with Windows v7, v8.1, V10 respectively.

While other tech companies are developing tools to counter these flaws and dedicated Blogspot to create awareness of these WiFi-related flaws, especially Netgear.