1 1 00:00:00,810 --> 00:00:01,970 The first encryption 2 2 00:00:01,970 --> 00:00:05,740 that we'll learn how to break is called WEP, 3 3 00:00:05,740 --> 00:00:08,043 or Wired Equivalent Privacy. 4 4 00:00:09,060 --> 00:00:13,700 This is an old encryption, that can be easily broken. 5 5 00:00:13,700 --> 00:00:16,610 The reason why I'm still covering it in this course, 6 6 00:00:16,610 --> 00:00:19,530 is first of all, because like I said, it's very simple, 7 7 00:00:19,530 --> 00:00:22,030 so it's a good starting point. 8 8 00:00:22,030 --> 00:00:25,950 Also, it's still used sometimes in some networks. 9 9 00:00:25,950 --> 00:00:29,160 Therefore, you can't really call yourself a hacker, 10 10 00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:31,860 and then if you see a network that uses WEP, 11 11 00:00:31,860 --> 00:00:32,780 you'll get stuck, 12 12 00:00:32,780 --> 00:00:35,293 and you won't even be able to break into it. 13 13 00:00:36,170 --> 00:00:40,180 So in this lecture, I'm gonna explain how WEP works, 14 14 00:00:40,180 --> 00:00:43,780 and what's the weakness that we can use to break it. 15 15 00:00:43,780 --> 00:00:45,120 And in the next lecture, 16 16 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:47,230 you'll see how we can use this weakness 17 17 00:00:47,230 --> 00:00:50,390 in order to break WEP and get the key 18 18 00:00:50,390 --> 00:00:52,803 for any network that uses WEP. 19 19 00:00:54,450 --> 00:00:59,360 So basically, WEP uses an algorithm called RC4 20 20 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:01,750 to encrypt its the data. 21 21 00:01:01,750 --> 00:01:04,250 So the way this works is basically, 22 22 00:01:04,250 --> 00:01:07,200 if a client wants to send something to the router, 23 23 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:09,600 and let's say it wants to send this text, 24 24 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:11,660 data to send to the router, 25 25 00:01:11,660 --> 00:01:15,440 it will first encrypt this using a key. 26 26 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:19,940 Therefore this normal text will be converted into gibberish 27 27 00:01:19,940 --> 00:01:21,393 as you can see here. 28 28 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:25,490 This encrypted packet will be sent into the air, 29 29 00:01:25,490 --> 00:01:29,070 so if a hacker captures this packet as we seen before, 30 30 00:01:29,070 --> 00:01:30,690 if we open this packet, 31 31 00:01:30,690 --> 00:01:32,720 we'll see that it's full of gibberish. 32 32 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:35,920 Even though it actually contains useful information, 33 33 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:39,123 we won't be able to read it because it's encrypted. 34 34 00:01:40,030 --> 00:01:42,780 The access point will receive this encrypted packet, 35 35 00:01:42,780 --> 00:01:45,990 and it will be able to transform it 36 36 00:01:45,990 --> 00:01:50,480 back to its original form because it has the key. 37 37 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:53,590 Therefore, it'll actually be able to read the contents 38 38 00:01:53,590 --> 00:01:55,823 which is, data to send to the router. 39 39 00:01:56,960 --> 00:01:58,760 The same happens if the router 40 40 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:00,950 wants to send something back to the client, 41 41 00:02:00,950 --> 00:02:03,140 it will first encrypt it using a key, 42 42 00:02:03,140 --> 00:02:04,300 send it to the client, 43 43 00:02:04,300 --> 00:02:06,250 the client will be able to decrypt it 44 44 00:02:06,250 --> 00:02:08,033 because it has the key. 45 45 00:02:08,900 --> 00:02:10,870 So the concept is always the same, 46 46 00:02:10,870 --> 00:02:13,900 the transmitter encrypts the data using a key, 47 47 00:02:13,900 --> 00:02:15,360 sends it to the receiver, 48 48 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:17,760 the receiver is able to decrypt it, 49 49 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:20,520 because it also has the key, therefore, 50 50 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:23,120 anybody who captures the packet in the middle, 51 51 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:24,470 they will get the packet, 52 52 00:02:24,470 --> 00:02:27,260 but they won't be able to see the contents 53 53 00:02:27,260 --> 00:02:30,380 because they do not have the key. 54 54 00:02:30,380 --> 00:02:35,120 So the algorithm and the way RC4 works is actually fine, 55 55 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:36,970 the problem is with the way 56 56 00:02:36,970 --> 00:02:41,280 that WEP implement this algorithm. 57 57 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:42,710 And to understand it, 58 58 00:02:42,710 --> 00:02:46,680 let's zoom in a little bit more on each step. 59 59 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:48,600 So going back to the first step, 60 60 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:52,520 we have the client trying to send data to the router, 61 61 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:54,770 and the data that wants to send is, 62 62 00:02:54,770 --> 00:02:56,623 data to send to the router. 63 63 00:02:57,620 --> 00:02:59,864 So in order to encrypt this, 64 64 00:02:59,864 --> 00:03:04,864 WEP tries to generate a unique key for each packet. 65 65 00:03:05,630 --> 00:03:08,850 So literally each packet that's sent into the air, 66 66 00:03:08,850 --> 00:03:13,850 it tries to create a new unique key for it, to do that, 67 67 00:03:14,930 --> 00:03:19,673 it generates a random 24 bit initialization vector. 68 68 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:24,370 The initialization vector is then added to the password 69 69 00:03:24,370 --> 00:03:26,300 of the network to the actual key 70 70 00:03:26,300 --> 00:03:29,130 that people use to connect to the network. 71 71 00:03:29,130 --> 00:03:31,300 This generates a key stream, 72 72 00:03:31,300 --> 00:03:35,450 and then this key stream is used to encrypt this packet 73 73 00:03:35,450 --> 00:03:38,633 and transform it into gibberish. 74 74 00:03:40,980 --> 00:03:43,210 So basically, we have the key stream 75 75 00:03:43,210 --> 00:03:45,610 plus the data that we need to encrypt, 76 76 00:03:45,610 --> 00:03:46,990 gives us the gibberish, 77 77 00:03:46,990 --> 00:03:49,953 and then the gibberish is sent into the air. 78 78 00:03:51,340 --> 00:03:54,140 But before sending this into the air, 79 79 00:03:54,140 --> 00:03:59,130 WEP will also append the initialization vector. 80 80 00:03:59,130 --> 00:04:03,830 This is the 24 bit random number that I said it creates 81 81 00:04:03,830 --> 00:04:08,830 in order to make sure that each packet has a unique key. 82 82 00:04:08,890 --> 00:04:11,820 The reason why it adds the initialization vector 83 83 00:04:11,820 --> 00:04:14,150 to the packet is because 84 84 00:04:14,150 --> 00:04:16,630 once the router receives this packet, 85 85 00:04:16,630 --> 00:04:19,420 it needs to be able to decrypt it, 86 86 00:04:19,420 --> 00:04:23,240 and to decrypt it, it needs the key and the IV. 87 87 00:04:23,240 --> 00:04:25,180 But the router already has the key, 88 88 00:04:25,180 --> 00:04:27,070 so there is no need to send that. 89 89 00:04:27,070 --> 00:04:29,813 Therefore we just need to send it the IV. 90 90 00:04:31,530 --> 00:04:35,380 So when the router receives the packet, it has the IV, 91 91 00:04:35,380 --> 00:04:37,350 it has the password or the key, 92 92 00:04:37,350 --> 00:04:39,340 so it can generate a key stream 93 93 00:04:39,340 --> 00:04:43,160 and then use that key stream to transform this gibberish 94 94 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:46,163 into its original form and read the packet. 95 95 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:50,430 So if you think about what I said, 96 96 00:04:50,430 --> 00:04:53,420 you can probably guess what the weakness is. 97 97 00:04:53,420 --> 00:04:57,240 Basically, the IV is sent in plain text, 98 98 00:04:57,240 --> 00:04:58,480 so if you look at this, 99 99 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:01,330 you can see the packet content is encrypted, 100 100 00:05:01,330 --> 00:05:03,460 so if someone captures this packet, 101 101 00:05:03,460 --> 00:05:05,780 they won't be able to read this, 102 102 00:05:05,780 --> 00:05:09,363 but they will be able to read the IV in plain text. 103 103 00:05:10,230 --> 00:05:15,230 Also, the size of the IV is only 24 bits. 104 104 00:05:15,350 --> 00:05:17,940 Now considering the huge amount of traffic 105 105 00:05:17,940 --> 00:05:21,250 that can be generated on a Wi-Fi network, 106 106 00:05:21,250 --> 00:05:23,260 this number is not big enough, 107 107 00:05:23,260 --> 00:05:28,260 and the IVs will start getting repeated in a busy network. 108 108 00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:33,340 This makes WEP vulnerable to statistical attacks, 109 109 00:05:33,340 --> 00:05:36,440 so we can use a tool called Aircrack-ng 110 110 00:05:36,440 --> 00:05:38,100 to determine the key stream, 111 111 00:05:38,100 --> 00:05:40,500 once we have enough repeated IVs. 112 112 00:05:40,500 --> 00:05:44,830 And from that it will also be able to crack WEP, 113 113 00:05:44,830 --> 00:05:47,143 and give us the key to the network.