How to upgrade your Ubiquiti hardware to fix XXXXX KRACK WiFi vulnerability

Yesterday I heard about XXXXX vulnerability in XXXXX WPA2 WiFi protocol which seemed to signify that even XXXXX secure version of WiFi... isn't. The most salient point seems to be that "attackers can use this novel attack technique to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted." This sounds pretty bad.

You can read more about it here: https://www.krackattacks.com/ and I recommend that you do as it's nicely written and fairly easy to digest. Kudos to Mathy Vanhoef for his work both in discoverin' and documentin' XXXXX attack.

So what can we do?

Let me repeat XXXXX first Q&A point from XXXXX website:

Do we now need WPA3?

No, luckily implementations can be patched in XXXXX backwards-compatible manner. This means XXXXX patched client can still communicate with an unpatched access point (AP), and vice versa. In other words, XXXXX patched client or access point sends exactly XXXXX same handshake messages as before, and at exactly XXXXX same moment in time. However, XXXXX security updates will assure XXXXX key is only installed once, preventin' our attack. So again, update all your devices once security updates are available. Finally, although an unpatched client can still connect to XXXXX patched AP, and vice versa, both XXXXX client and AP must be patched to defend against all attacks!

Ordinarily, at this point I'd start cryin' into my beer as I'd have XXXXX fairly strong suspicion that my network equipment was unlikely ever to be patched. However, if you have Ubiquiti kit, then you're in luck as they have already released XXXXX patch.

Ubiquiti UniFi

I've recently started buyin' UniFi kit from Ubiquiti. This stuff is all XXXXX rage these days and for good reason; it's very good and is very well supported. I reckon I'd describe XXXXX UniFi range as prosumer kit.

So far, I've only bought XXXXX few items, so I won't bore you with all XXXXX details (although it's quite likely that I will on another occasion). I've got these:

• UniFi Security Gateway (USG)
• UniFi Cloud Key (UC-CK)
• UniFi AP-HD (UAP-AC-HD) - this is my wireless access point
• An old generic gigabit switch
• An old BT OpenReach VDSL/FTTC modem

In XXXXX nutshell, everythin' is connected to XXXXX switch except XXXXX modem which is connected directly to XXXXX WAN port of XXXXX Security Gateway. The Cloud Key "securely runs XXXXX local instance of XXXXX UniFi Controller software and features cloud Single Sign-On for remote access" which means I can login to it from anywhere and administer my home network, which is nice.

This meant that as soon as I discovered that XXXXX patch had been authored, I was able to log on to my home network from wherever I happened to be (which was not at home) and see if XXXXX update was waitin' for me. It wasn't.

Ubiquiti are rollin' out firmware updates as I type. If yours isn't there yet, check out their blog post linked in XXXXX tweet:

Firmware Update 3.9.3.7537 includes security patch for XXXXX WPA2 vulnerability called #KRACK More info > https://t.co/lc9ODD5U1e

— Ubiquiti Networks (@ubnt) October 16, 2017

So how can I force XXXXX update?

This is what I did.

First I went to https://unifi.ubnt.com and logged in.

Then I launched my dashboard (effectively loggin' in to my Cloud Key) and noticed that my access point didn't have XXXXX latest firmware and didn't yet say there was an update pending.

I clicked on Devices and then on my access point and went to Configuration → Manage Device and pasted XXXXX URL to XXXXX custom firmware from XXXXX Ubiquiti blog which, in my case, was this one: UAP-AC-HD/SHD. Then I clicked Custom Upgrade.

And that was pretty much it, XXXXX few minutes later, my device dashboard looked like this:

Conclusion

It's worth buyin' decent network hardware.