A billion-plus computers, phones, and other devices are said to suffer a chip-level security vulnerability that can be exploited by nearby miscreants to snoop on victims’ encrypted Wi-Fi traffic.
The flaw [PDF] was branded KrØØk by the bods at Euro infosec outfit ESET who discovered it. The design blunder is otherwise known as CVE-2019-15126, and is related to 2017’s KRACK technique for spying on Wi-Fi networks.
An eavesdropper doesn’t have to be logged into the target device’s wireless network to exploit KrØØk. If successful, the miscreant can take repeated snapshots of the device’s wireless traffic as if it were on an open and insecure Wi-Fi. These snapshots may contain things like URLs of requested websites, personal information in transit, and so on.
It’s not something to be totally freaking out over: someone exploiting this has to be physically near you, and you may notice your Wi-Fi being disrupted. But it’s worth knowing about.
Robin Edgar
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