Wi-Fi Alliance announces WPA3 protocol to better secure wireless devices

The Wi-Fi Alliance, a body overseeing the development of the wireless standard today announced its new security protocol: WPA3. It will obviously further strengthen wireless security, but also this announcement comes in wake of the KRACK attack revelation about three months ago by a Belgian security researcher.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has stated that an official draft of the WPA3 WiFi authentication protocol will be available later this year. Details are scarce at the moment but we know that a newer form of encryption along with added security measures are coming to the new protocol.

The KRACK aftermath

KRACK attack, also known as Key Reinstallation Attack can target the four-way handshake that is used by WPA2. The attack is a proof-of-concept showing that the once secure protocol has now been compromised and that it can be compromised by people with malicious intent. Here’s a video demonstrating the attack:

WPA3: What to expect

WPA3 will strengthen wireless security and will add native support for IoT based devices. Certain modifications will certainly be needed to enable support for the protocol on your router. However, the key thing here is that none of these changes are new, and have been around for a while now. When the KRACK attack was revealed to vendors under an NDA, everyone knew that WPA2 needed to be phased out and upgraded. The Linux kernel already has the support for the improved handshake. All major OEMs and vendors will push support for WPA3 in 2018.

Sources: BleepingComputer, KrackAttacks