No Strings Attached Show

Welcome to Episode 6 of the NSA Show Podcast, on this episode Andrew and I talk with Carlos Gomez Gallego from Aruba Networks about their new ClearPass product. You’ve seen it everywhere lately, this bring your own device, BYOD for short, issue that has created quite a stir. We talk with Carlos about how you can easily manage personal devices on your network and make it easier on your IT staff.

Carlos Gomez Gallego has over 15 years experience in the wireless and security industry and currently serves as Director of Product Management for Aruba Networks in the Network Services division.  Carlos was the co founder of Amigopod, a leading guest access provider which was acquired by Aruba Networks in Dec 2010.  Prior to Amigopod Carlos worked as principal consultant for No Wires Allowed and served as a senior engineer for Bluesocket.  Carlos holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia

You can also hear more about this BYOD topic over at the Tech Field Day website located here:

http://techfieldday.com/2012/byod-mobile-device-management-panel-wifi-symposium/

We’d also like to thank Aruba Networks for sponsoring the NSA Show Podcast & Blog!

Welcome to the 5th episode of the NSA Show podcast! I’m joined by Samuel Clements, Jennifer Huber, and Dan Cybulskie. Listen as we recap our thoughts from Wireless Field Day 2. Find out who was our favorite vendor, who changed our minds, and what was our favorite moment of the event (that we could publicly state!).

For more information regarding Wireless Field Day please see E03 – Wireless Field Day 2 Preview and Tech Field Day.

Podcast Guests

Sam Clements

SC-WiFi

@Samuel_Clements

Daniel Cybulskie

SimplyWiFi

@SimplyWifi

Jennifer Huber

Wireless CCIE, here I come!

@JenniferLucille

Listen as Andrew and I discuss the newly launched Cisco 3600 AP with Neil Diener and Walt Shaw from Cisco’s Wireless Networking Business Unit. We talk about some of the great new features of this AP such as the 4×4:3 antenna design and the module slot. This AP features 4 transmit and 4 receive antennas with support for 3 spatial streams. What this means for end users is speeds up to 450Mbps when coupled with a 3 spatial stream client such as the new MacBook Air’s and Intel 6300 cards. Andrew drills down into some of the enhancements for CleanAir with a monitor only radio module and ClientLink 2.0 details.

Neil Diener is a Technical Leader in the CTO and Strategic Initiatives Office of Cisco’s Wireless Networking Business Unit. At Cisco, Neil works on shaping Cisco’s wireless technology and product strategies, with a focus on the areas of Spectrum Intelligence, new RF technologies, and video over Wi-Fi.

Neil came to Cisco through the acquisition of Cognio, Inc. in 2007, where he was co-founder and CTO. Before founding Cognio, he held a series of management level positions at companies including Direct Hit (acquired by Ask.com), Telogy Networks (acquired by Motorola), Sun Microsystems, and Xerox. Neil holds a BS Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MS Computer Engineering from USC. He has been issued 15 patents in the area of Wi-Fi and spectrum management.

Welcome to the third episode of the No Strings Attached Show podcast, in this episode Andrew vonNagy and I talk with Marcus Burton and Stephen Foskett about the upcoming Wireless Field Day and the Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium.

The 2nd Wireless Field Day will be happening in San Jose Jan 26th to 27th. For more details check out the Wireless Field Day website located at http://techfieldday.com/2012/wfd2/.

Prior to the Wireless Field Day which is an invite only event there will be the Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium held on Jan 25th 2012 at the Double Tree in San Jose, CA. This event is free to anyone who is in the area or who wants to travel to San Jose for that day. For more details check out the Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium website located at http://techfieldday.com/2012/wifi-mobility-symposium/, to register for the event please go to the Eventbrite page located at http://wifimobilitysymposium.eventbrite.com/.

In episode 02 of the show, Andrew vonNagy hosts and welcomes guests Matthew Gast from Aerohive and Dan Cybulskie from Simply Wi-Fi to the show to talk about the recently announced Wi-Fi Protected Setup vulnerability. Matthew brings Wi-Fi expertise to the show from through his work at Aerohive, participation in the IEEE 802.11 standard, and as acting task chair for Wi-Fi Alliance security task groups. Dan brings extensive Wi-Fi security knowledge and has performed quite a bit of research into the WPS vulnerability since the announcement.

First, we discuss the background of Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) – yet another acronym to remember and/or confuse with so many others – and it’s creation to “ease” security setup for non-technical users, typically in the consumer market. We make the distinction that WPS is not the same as WPA/WPA2 and that Wi-Fi security through use of those protocols is definitely not compromised by this vulnerability. Furthermore, WPS supports various methods of setup, including PIN and Push-Button Configuration, with the PIN mode the only one being affected by the vulnerability.

Matthew brings up a great point, that although this is a protocol design flaw, proper vendor implementations can make the attack much harder to execute. This is because it is a brute-force attack and implementation of user lockout / timeout feature after consecutive failed PIN attempts will slow-down the attack.

Next, we dig into the WPS vulnerability details:

* Independently discovered by two parties: Stefan Viehbock and Tactical Network Solutions

* Does NOT affect WPA/WPA2 enterprise (802.1X) or personal (PSK)

* Only the WPS PIN mode is affected

* Root cause is due to poor protocol design, which is something the Wi-Fi industry is familiar with because of WEP’s well-documented issues

* This is an “active” attack, meaning the attacker must send and receive frames to the target. It cannot be exploited passively.

* All WPS capable routers are affected

* Some vendor implementations reduce attack effectiveness due to the use of a lockout feature after failed attempts

* Static PINs (printed on the equipment) are generally more susceptible because WPS is typically “always-on”. Equipment with user-configurable PINs typically require WPS setup to be activated every time it needs to be used, and are less susceptible.

Then we discuss the impact to consumers, SMBs, and enterprises:

* Consumer and some SMB equipment is vulnerable. No enterprise equipment has been found that supports WPS.

* Enterprises should still be mildly concerned due to rogue APs and home VPNs connecting back into the corporate network.

* Apple’s product focus on good user experience actually serves as a security benefit in this case, because they didn’t need to implement WPS.

* Client devices are technically vulnerable too, but none of the show participants think it’s much of an attack vector and are not too concerned.

* Vulnerability was discovered over 1 year ago by Tactical Network Solutions, which is why their Reaver attack tool was promptly available after the U.S. CERT announcement.

* An exploit is in the wild… home users need to take action NOW by researching their router to see if it’s vulnerable.

Mitigation Steps:

* Turn off WPS, if possible. Some equipment does not allow it to be disabled.

* Watch for firmware updates from the vendor. However, given consumer manufacturers historical lack of support and upgrades for existing products, it’s probably best to buy a new router that does not support WPS or allows WPS ...

Welcome to episode 1 of the NSA Show Podcast! In this episode we take a look at some of the software tools used by some of the top Wireless engineers on a day to day basis. We start off by looking at Ekahau Site Survey and AirMagnet Survey Pro. Each of these applications have their pros and cons as we explain their differences and how they work. Next we roll into RF analysis tools such as Cisco Spectrum Expert, Metageek Chanalyzer, and finally AirMagnet SpectrumXT. Listen as the discussion goes from what’s the best software tool to use to a hot topic out there today: where is Cisco’s USB adapter to keep up with the ever changing form factors of laptops? Finally we end the show with a brief discussion regarding packet capture tools like Wireshark, WildPackets, and AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer.

We hope you enjoy this first episode, we had a lot of fun recording it and are looking forward to your feedback for future episodes!

Welcome to episode 0 of the NSA Show Podcast! This is a placeholder episode to get the iTunes and other directory links setup.