Cisco Field Notice: Wi-Fi Protected Setup PIN Brute Force Vulnerability

Note the WPS vulnerability is with home and soho devices and not with Cisco enterprise gear. Note the models below:

Cisco Response

On December 27th, 2011 US-CERT released VU#723755 available here: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/723755

The US-CERT Vulnerability Note describes a vulnerability that exists in the Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) protocol, also known as Wi-Fi Simple Config, when devices are operating in PIN External Registrar (PIN-ER) mode.  Devices operating in PIN-ER mode allow a WPS capable client to supply only the correct WPS PIN to configure their client on a properly secured network.  A weakness in the protocol affects all devices that operate in the PIN-ER mode, and may allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to brute force the WPS configuration PIN in a short amount of time.

The vulnerability is due to a flaw that allows an attacker to determine when the first 4-digits of the eight-digit PIN are known.  This effectively reduces the PIN space from 10⁷ or 10,000,000 possible values to 10⁴ + 10³ which is 11,000 possible values. The eighth digit of the PIN is utilized as a checksum of the first 7 digits and does not contribute to the available PIN space. Because the PIN space has been significantly reduced, an attacker could brute force the WPS pin in as little as a few hours.

While the affected devices listed below implement the WPS 1.0 standard which requires that a 60-second lockout be implemented after three unsuccessful attempts to authenticate to the device, this does not substantially mitigate this issue as it only increases the time to exploit the protocol weakness from a few hours to at most several days.  It is our recommendation to disable the WPS feature to prevent exploitation of this vulnerability.

Vulnerable Products:

Product Name	Is the WPS feature enabled by default?	Can the WPS feature be permanently disabled?
Access Points
Cisco WAP4410N	Yes	Yes
Unified Communications
Cisco UC320W	Yes	No
Wireless Routers/VPN/Firewall Devices
Cisco RV110W	Yes	Yes
Cisco RV120W	No	Yes
Cisco SRP521W	Yes	Yes
Cisco SRP526W	Yes	Yes
Cisco SRP527W	Yes	Yes
Cisco SRP541W	Yes	Yes
Cisco SRP546W	Yes	Yes
Cisco SRP547W	Yes	Yes
Cisco WRP400	Yes	Yes

Note: The Cisco Valet product line is maintained by the Cisco Linksys Business Unit. Information concerning the Cisco Valet line as well as information on Linksys by Cisco products will be forthcoming.

Products Confirmed Not Vulnerable:

Product Name	Not Affected Reason
Access Points/Wireless Bridges
Cisco AP541N	Does not support WPS
Cisco WAP200	Does not support WPS
Cisco WAP200E	Does not support WPS
Cisco WAP2000	Does not support WPS
Cisco WET200	Does not support WPS
Unified Communications
Cisco UC500 Series	Does not support WPS
Wireless Cameras
Cisco WVC210	Does not support WPS
Cisco WVC2300	Does not support WPS
Wireless Routers/VPN/Firewall Devices
Cisco SA520W	WPS not enabled by default Does not support PIN-ER configuration Mode
Cisco RV220W	Does not support WPS
Cisco WRV210	Does not support WPS
Cisco WRVS4400N	Does not support WPS

Additional Information

Workarounds:

Disable the Wi-Fi Protected Setup feature on devices that allow the feature to be disabled, as listed in the Vulnerable Products table.  Cisco Systems has verified that the products that support disabling the WPS feature do indeed disable it and are not vulnerable once the feature has been disabled from the management interface.

Fixed Software:

Product Name	Fixed Software
Cisco WAP4410	To Be Released
Cisco RV110W	To Be Released
Cisco RV120W	To Be Released
Cisco UC320W	To Be Released
Cisco SRP521W	To Be Released
Cisco SRP526W	To Be Released
Cisco SRP527W	To Be Released
Cisco SRP541W	To Be Released
Cisco SRP546W	To Be Released
Cisco SRP547W	To Be Released
Cisco WRP400	To Be Released

Note: The Cisco Valet product line is maintained by the Cisco Linksys Business Unit. Information concerning the Cisco Valet line as well as information on Linksys by Cisco products will be forthcoming.

Exploitation and Public Announcements:

Exploit code and functional attack tools that exploit the weakness within the WPS protocol have been released.

This vulnerability was discovered by Stefan Viehböck and Craig Heffner.

Status of this Notice: Final

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Revision History

 Revision	 Date	 Notes
1.0	01-11-2012	Initial Public Release