Over the past week, a security flaw was discovered by Marty Vanhoef that allowed hackers to replay cryptographic messages. In a paper released by Vanhoef, he stated problems in the WPA2 protocol that allowed key installations attacks, KRACK, to read information thought to be encrypted. To be clear, WPA2 means WiFi Protected Access 2, which is meant to keep the information on your network secure, described as government grade since 2006 and is on all certified wifi hardware.

In simple terms, a hacker using the vulnerability would be able to see your traffic from your device to your router, which is now no longer secure; however, if you are being secure and using “https,” you should be good, but you are open for attacks when using “http.” If you’re not being careful, whoever is using this vulnerability can see all your unencrypted traffic.

“Knowing this, I’m gonna definitely get on top of my wireless devices because I have some important information on my phone that could be devastating,” said Gabe Shanahan (11).

What can you do to prevent this? First and foremost, update everything that you have that is wireless: your router, laptop, phone, tablet. Make sure you have the lastest update, security patches, and companies at the time are putting updates out. This could mean that if not updated, even the smallest of things like a house camera could be accessed by outside resources. Regarding your router, update your firmware as soon as possible, and if there is no update available at the time being, use an ethernet connection until a fix is issued.

“As soon as I heard about the issue, I downloaded some extensions on my chrome browser to keep me safe so that my information wouldn’t be seen,” said Nathaniel Bryant (11).

In the end, this is just a reminder that nothing is ever fully safe. With that said, to limit our vulnerability, we should take steps to properly protect ourselves. It is amazing with the number of people that are affected by bugs that have been patched or fixed, months or year after.