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Forum Discussion
GWild
Jan 28, 2021Guide
WPS is ON all the time, and can't be disabled
Orbi RBS20/CBR40 System WiFi Monitor is showing the network as WPS enabled: so it seems it is susceptible to the WPS hacks out there. There is also no visible way to disable WPS within the Orbi L...
FURRYe38
Jan 28, 2021Guru
Again, I might presume that NG may employ some form of there own WPS handling and syncing that is proprietary on Orbi or NGs MESH systems which only is behind the scenes and is apart of there core non GPL code.
If you feel that his is an issue. Please contact NG support and advise them of your concerns. There would not nothing we can do here in the forums to effect a change.
GWild
Jan 28, 2021Guide
Netgear won't discuss this with me because I am outside their 90 day customer service window.
But folks - customers - should understand that this vulnerability still exists in Orbi routers... and it isn't anything proprietary: because my tools report it as standard WPS (conforming to standards) ... lol.
- FURRYe38Jan 28, 2021Guru
Well you can surely post about this here then:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home
Also make contact with a forum moderator as well.
Again, nothing we can do here in the forums.
Good Luck.
- CrimpOnJan 29, 2021Guru
I installed the ""reaver" WPS hack tool for Linux. After several attempts, all it manages to say is, "detected AP rate limiting. Waiting 60 seconds before re-checking." One attempt said, that it was trying PIN 12345670, but nothing after that. Not encouraging that the tool designed to discover WPS PIN in a minimum of 11,000 attempts has failed miserably.
Of course, I will keep plugging away trying to hack the Orbi WPS PIN, but I have this feeling that the comment from 2014 is correct that "Modern WiFi access points are not vulnerable to PIN attack."
That leaves the physical WPS button, which I do not see as that much of a vulnerability. If someone can physically touch my Orbi to press the WPS button, they can do so much more.
- GWildJan 29, 2021Guide
CrimpOn Interesting results, but not surprising. The fact you can attack the PIN is evidence Netgears post is not fully representative of the facts. The Orbi's do have WPS Pin-mode enabled and it is pretty much the standard implementation. Since they've applied the "try too many times we will stop responding" fix - your tests confirm that it works - it's probably not worth bothering with. The "listen for handshake attack" that detects the PIN being used is probably the worst case: but since that is only used the first time the slave connects after reboots, the chance of someone listening long enough is probably quite small.
After more playing, I found that the "no new connections" security feature also seems broken. When I set Access Control ON devices that come and go (e.g., TV and phones) fail to gain access if they were off when I changed the setting -- yet they appear in the prior devices list and are in my device reservation list. But this is a subject for another post ... lol.