Security Week
Jason B. Jones
This has been an exciting week for internet security folks. That's almost never a good thing. There have been a variety of wild new announcements, including the revelation that cell phone companies are exposing a remarkable amount of non-anonymized information about everyone, as well as new attacks against Flash and Office, and, most notoriously, the Krack Attack, which "destroys nearly all wifi security".
I am not a security professional, but I think that a decent amateur explanation for the Krack attack is that there's a gap between the mathematical demonstration of the security of the "four-way handshake" used by WPA2-configured wifi networks and the actual way it's implemented. The attack forces the reuse of a cryptographic nonce, which reuse ruins encryption. The Krack Attack security researchers had coordinated the announcement of this exploit with various manufacturers, so patches for many devices either have been released (I see you, Windows!) or are about to be (you too, Apple!), but of course there are well-known problems in getting patches out to Android phones . . . and then there are all those cool Internet of Things wifi-enabled devices that may/may not need updates. As updates become available for your various devices–computers, tablets, phones, and more, it'll be important to update. This seemed like a good opportunity to point to some security resources for your home wifi network. iMore's writeup is really good, and, as always, reminds us that it's important to stay off unsecured public wifi networks and also to use a VPN. The other resource I wanted to point people to is Taylor Swift's Decent Security, especially the section on router and wifi configuration, which has human-usable explanations of how to keep your home wifi setup safe. (And remember: taking basic steps like changing the router's password from the default will make you better at security than, for example, Equifax.) Naturally, it's a very busy time of the academic year, but it is worth blocking out some time to make sure your devices are up to date and that you have some basic security measures on your network. Photo "Unlocked" by Flickr user Sam Stockton / Creative Commons licensed BY-2.0 | 
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