Paper 2013/748 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2013/748 ↗
Plaintext Recovery Attacks Against WPA/TKIP
Abstract
We conduct an analysis of the RC4 algorithm as it is used in the IEEE WPA/TKIP wireless standard. In that standard, RC4 keys are computed on a per-frame basis, with specific key bytes being set to known values that depend on 2 bytes of the WPA frame counter (called the TSC). We observe very large, TSC-dependent biases in the RC4 keystream when the algorithm is keyed according to the WPA specification. These biases permit us to mount an effective statistical, plaintext-recovering attack in the situation where the same plaintext is encrypted in many different frames (the so-called ``broadcast attack'' setting). We assess the practical impact of these attacks on WPA/TKIP.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
PDF- Category
- Secret-key cryptography
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- History
- 2014-03-01: last updated
- 2013-11-17: published
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2013/748
- License
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2013/748,
author = {Kenneth G. Paterson and Bertram Poettering and Jacob C. N. Schuldt},
title = {Plaintext Recovery Attacks Against WPA/TKIP},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2013/748},
year = {2013},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/748}
}