Feds Crack 128 Bit WEP In Three Minutes

5 Apr, 2005 at 9:24pm ET Article published in Tech

At a recent ISSA (Information Systems Security Association) meeting in Los Angeles, a team of FBI agents demonstrated current WEP-cracking techniques and broke a 128 bit WEP key in about three minutes.

At a recent ISSA (Information Systems Security Association) meeting in Los Angeles, a team of FBI agents demonstrated current WEP-cracking techniques and broke a 128 bit WEP key in about three minutes. Special Agent Geoff Bickers ran the Powerpoint presentation and explained the attack, while the other agents (who did not want to be named or photographed) did the dirty work of sniffing wireless traffic and breaking the WEP keys.

Source: Tom’s Hardware Guide

Comments

5 Apr 2005 ~ 9:47pm entropy Holy crap...
5 Apr 2005 ~ 9:51pm Thrax WHEEEEE
5 Apr 2005 ~ 10:47pm primesuspect Some 13 year olds could probably do it in 2 minutes
5 Apr 2005 ~ 11:33pm QCH Are you sure the FBI didn't get its 128 own WEP by a 13 yr old? I cannot believe the FBI can crack it's own WEP Code.
6 Apr 2005 ~ 1:42am drasnor I'm going to use this often when telling people how much WEP sucks.

-drasnor
6 Apr 2005 ~ 8:47am KingFish I knew it sucked and was under the belief it could be cracked with a lot more time and effort involved than this. So much for that assumption. Good thing I have mac address filters in place as a second line of defense. I'll have to look into a firmware upgrade to see if mine is wpa upgradeable.