fragattacks/research

Fragment and Forge: Breaking Wi-Fi Through Frame Aggregation and Fragmentation

Introduction

The discovered attacks affect all Wi-Fi networks. Note that the recent WPA3 specification only introduced a new authentication method, but its encryption ciphers (CCMP and GCMP) are identical to WPA2. Because of this, the attacks are identical against WPA2 and WPA3 networks.

Older WPA networks by default use TKIP for encryption, and the applicability of the attacks against this cipher is discussed in the paper. Out of completeness, and to illustrate that Wi-Fi has been vulnerable since its creation, the paper also briefly discusses the applicability of the attacks against WEP.

A summary of the discoveries can be found in SUMMARY.md, although it is of course strongly recommend that you read the paper as well.

Supported Network Cards

Only specific wireless network cards are supported. This is because some network cards may overwrite the sequence of fragment number of injected frames, or may reorder frames of different priority, and this interferes with the test tool (i.e. the tool might incorrectly say a device is secure although it's not). I have confirmed that the following network cards work properly:

Network Card	USB	5GHz	mixed mode	injection mode	hwsim mode
Intel Wireless-AC 8265	No	Yes	patched driver	yes	under development
Intel Wireless-AC 3160	No	Yes	patched driver	yes	under development
Technoethical N150 HGA	Yes	No	patched driver/firmware	patched driver/firmware	under development
TP-Link TL-WN722N v1.x	Yes	No	patched driver/firmware	patched driver/firmware	under development
Alfa AWUS036NHA	Yes	No	patched driver/firmware	patched driver/firmware	under development
Alfa AWUS036ACM	Yes	Yes	patched driver	yes	under development
Alfa AWUS036ACH	Yes	Yes	TODO	TODO	under development
Netgear WN111v2	Yes	No	patched driver	yes	under development

The three last colums signify:

1. Mixed mode: whether the network card can be used in mixed mode.

2. Injection mode: whether the network card can be used as a second interface to inject frames in injection mode.

3. Hwsim mode: whether the network card can be used in the experimental hwsim mode.

Yes indicates the card works out-of-the-box in the given mode. Patched driver/firmware means that the card is compatible when used in combination with patched drivers and/or firmware. No means this mode is not supported by the network card.

Note that USB devices can be used inside a virtual machine, and the modified drivers and/or firmware can be installed in this virtual machine. However, I found that the usage of virtual machines can make network cards less reliable, and I instead recommend the usage of a live CD if you cannot install the modified drivers/firmware natively.

More details on my experience with the above devices can be found here. Briefly summarized:

• I recommend the use of the Technoethical N150 HGA in either injection mode or mixed mode. This deivce requires the use of a patched driver and firmware.

• During my tests the AWUS036ACM dongle was unreliable when connected to a USB3.0 port, but worked well when connected to a USB2.0 port. This behaviour may depend on your computer.

• The Intel 3160 and 8265 are supported and extensively tested. Sometimes their firmware crashed but a reboot makes the network card usable again. The Intel AX200 is not compatible with the test tool.

• The WN111v2 seems to work well, although I did not test it extensively.

• The driver for the AWUS036ACH is not part of the Linux kernel and requires the installation of a separate driver. On some Linux distributions such as Kali you can install this driver through the package manager.

If you are unable to find one of the above network cards, you can search for alternative network cards that have a high chance of also working. When using a network card that is not explicitly supported I strongly recommend to first run the injection tests before using it.

Prerequisites

The test tool was tested on Kali Linux and Ubuntu 20.04. To install the required dependencies, execute:

# Kali Linux and Ubuntu
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libnl-3-dev libnl-genl-3-dev libnl-route-3-dev libssl-dev \
	libdbus-1-dev git pkg-config build-essential macchanger net-tools python3-venv \
	aircrack-ng firmware-ath9k-htc rfkill

Now clone this repository, build the tools, and configure a virtual python3 environment:

# **Self note: replace with real HTTP unauthenticated link on release**
git clone https://gitlab.com/aconf/wifi.git fragattack --recursive
cd fragattack
./build.sh
cd research
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install wheel
pip install -r requirements.txt

By default the above instructions only have to be executed once. However, you do have to execute ./build.sh again after pulling in new code using git.

Patched Drivers

Install patched drivers:

sudo apt-get install bison flex linux-headers-$(uname -r)
# **Self note: replace with real HTTP unauthenticated link on release instead of separate directory**
cd driver-backports-5.8-rc2-1
make defconfig-experiments
make -j 4
sudo make install

Install patched ath9k_htc firmware:

cd research/ath9k-firmware/
./install.sh
# Now reboot

The ./install.sh script assumes the ath9k_htc firmware images are located in the directory /lib/firmware/ath9k_htc. If this is not the case on your system you have to manually copy htc_7010.fw and htc_9271.fw to the appropriate directory.

After installing the patched drivers and firmware you must unplug your Wi-Fi dongles and reboot your system. The above instructions have to be executed again if your Linux kernel gets updated.

Note that even when your device works out of the box, I still recommend to install the modified drivers, as this assures there are no unexpected regressions in kernel and driver code.

In case you cannot install the modified drivers/firmware natively, you can download a live Ubuntu CD that contains the modified drivers/firmware along with our test tool. Alternatively, you can use a virtual machine with USB network cards, although I found that using a virtual machine is less reliable in pratice.

Before every usage

Every time you want to use the test tool, you first have to load the virtual python environment as root. This can be done using:

cd research
sudo su
source venv/bin/activate

You should now disable Wi-Fi in your network manager so it will not interfere with the test tool. Also make sure no other network services are causing outgoing traffic. You can assure this by using iptables to block traffic by executing ./droptraffic.sh (you can revert this by rebooting). Optionally check using sudo airmon-ng check to see which other processing might interfere.

The test tool can test both clients and APs:

• Testing APs: configure the AP you want to test by editing research/client.conf. This is a standard wpa_supplicant configuration file, see the hostap documentation for an overview of all the options it supports.

• Testing clients: you must execute the test tool with the --ap parameter (see below). This instructs the tool into creating an AP with as name testnetwork and password abcdefgh. Connect to this network with the client you want to test. By default the client must request an IP using DHCP. To edit properties of the created AP, such as the channel it's created on, you can edit research/hostapd.conf.

Interface Modes

Mixed mode

This mode requires only one wireless network card, but generally requires a patched driver and/or firmware and only specific network cards are supported. See Patched Drivers on how to install patched drivers/firmware, and Supported Network Cards for compatible network cards. Execute the test tool in this mode using:

./fragattack wlan0 [--ap] $COMMAND

Possible values of $COMMAND are listed in testing for vulnerabilities and extended vulnerability tests.

One advantage of this mode is that it works well when testing clients that may enter a sleep state. Nevertheless, if possible, I recommend disabling sleep functionality of the client being tested.

Injection mode

This mode requires two wireless network cards: one will act as an AP or the client, and the other one will be used to inject frames. Execute the test tool in this mode using:

./fragattack wlan0 --inject wlan1 [--ap] $COMMAND

Here interface wlan0 will act as a legitimate client or AP, and wlan1 will be used to inject frames. For wlan0, any card that supports normal client or AP mode on Linux can be used. For wlan1, a card must be used that supports injection mode according to Supported Network Cards.

When testing clients in this mode, injected frames may be sent when the client is in a sleep state. This causes attacks to fail, so you must make sure the client will not enter a sleep state.

Hwsim mode

This mode is experimental and only for research purposes. See hwsim mode details for more information.

Testing for Vulnerabilities

You can test devices by running the test tool as discussed in interface modes and replacing $COMMAND with one of the commands in the table blow.

Before testing for vulnerabilities I recommend to execute the first four commands in the table below. The first command performs a normal ping and can be used to confirm that the test setup works. The second tests sends the ping request as as two fragmented Wi-Fi frames. In case one of these tests is not working, follow the instructions in network card injection test to confirm your network card is properly injecting frames. The third and fourth tests verify basic defragmentation behaviour of a device and are further discussed below.

Command	Short description
Sanity checks
ping I,E	Send a normal ping
ping I,E,E	Send a normal fragmented ping
Basic device behaviour
ping I,E,E --delay 5	Send a normal fragmented ping with a 5 second delay between fragments
ping-frag-sep	Send a normal fragmented ping with fragments separated by another frame
A-MSDU attacks (§3)
ping I,E --amsdu	Send a normal ping encapsulated in a normal A-MSDU frame.
ping I,E,E --amsdu	Send a normal ping an a fragmented A-MSDU frame.
amsdu-inject	Send a valid A-MSDU frame whose start is also a valid LLC/SNAP header.
amsdu-inject linux	Same as above, but works against targets that incorrectly parse the frame.
Mixed key attacks (§4)
ping I,R,BE,AE	Inject two fragments encrypted under a different key.
ping I,R,BE,AE --pn-per-qos	Same as above, but also works if the target only accepts consecutive fragments.
Cache attacks (§5)
ping I,E,C,AE	Inject a fragment then reconnect (as client reassociate) and inject second fragment.
ping I,E,C,E	Same as above, but with a longer delay before sending the second fragment.
ping I,E,C,AE --full-reconnect	Inject a fragment, reconnect, then inject second fragment.
ping I,E,C,E --full-reconnect	Same as above, but with a longer delay before sending the second fragment.
Nonconsecutive PNs attack (§6.2)
ping I,E,E --inc-pn 2	Send a fragmented ping with non-consecutive packet numbers.
Mixed plain/encrypt attack (§6.3)
ping I,E,P	Send a fragmented ping: first fragment encrypted, second fragment in plaintext.
ping I,P,E	Send a fragmented ping: first fragment in plaintext, send fragment encrypted.
ping I,P	Send a plaintext ping.
ping I,P,P	Send a fragmented ping: both fragments are sent in plaintext.
linux-plain	Mixed plaintext/encrypted fragmentation attack specific to Linux.
EAPOL forwarding attack (§6.4)
eapol-inject 00:11:22:33:44:55	Test if the AP forwards EAPOL frames before being connected.
Broadcast fragment attack (§6.7)
ping I,D,P --bcast-ra	Send ping in a 2nd plaintext broadcasted fragment.
A-MSDUs EAPOL attack (§6.8)
eapol-amsdu BB	Send A-MSDU frame disguised as EAPOL frame. Use tcpdump to check if vulnerable.
eapol-amsdu I,CC	Same as above, except the frame is injected after obtaining an IP.
eapol-amsdu M,BB	Send a malformed A-MSDU disguised as EAPOL. Use tcpdump to check if vulnerable.
eapol-amsdu M,I,CC	Same as above, except the frame is injected after obtaining an IP.

TODO: Explain when tcpdump is required to check if a device is vulnerable.

Notes on sanity and implementation checks

• ping I,E,E: This test should only fail if the tested device doesn't support fragmentation. In case you encounter this, it is recommended to run also run this test against a device that does support fragmentation to assure the test tool is properly injecting fragmented frames.

• ping I,E,E --delay 5: This test is used to check the maximum accepted delay between two fragments. If this test doesn't work, try it again with --delay 1.5 or lower. In case the maximum accepted delay is low, all fragments sent in other tests must be sent within this maximum accepted delay. Otherwise tests will trivially fail and you might conclude a device isn't vulnerable to an attack even though it actually is.

• ping-frag-sep: This tests sends a fragmented Wi-Fi frame that is seperated by an unrelated frame. That is, it sends the first fragment, then a full unrelated Wi-Fi frame, and finally the second fragment. In case this test fails, the mixed key attack and cache attack will likely also fail. The only purpose of this test is to better understand the behaviour of a device and learn why other tests are failing.

Notes on mixed key attack tests

• When running the mixed key test against an AP, the AP must be configured to regularly renew the session key (PTK) by executing a new 4-way handshake (e.g. every 30 seconds or minute). Against a low number of APs, the client can also request the AP to renew the PTK, meaning there is no need to configure the AP to periodically renew the key. In this case you can let the test tool request the AP to renew the PTK by adding the --rekey-request parameter.

• Home routers with a MediaTek driver will perform the rekey handshake in plaintext. To test these or similar devices, also must add the --rekey-plaintext parameter (see examples in extended vulnerability tests).

• Certain clients install the key too early during a pairwise session rekey. To test these devices, add the --rekey-early-install parameter and retry the test (see examples in extended vulnerability tests).

Checklist

In case the test tool doesn't appear to be working, check the following:

1. Check that no other process is using the network card (e.g. kill your network manager).

2. Check that you are using modified drivers if needed for your wireless network card. If you updated your kernel, you will need to recompile and reinstall the drivers.

3. Check that you are using modified firmware if needed for your wireless network card.

4. Assure the device you are testing doesn't enter a sleep state (causing it to miss injected frames). I recommend running the test tool in mixed mode since this better handles clients that may go into a sleep state.

5. Run the injection tests to make sure injection is working properly.

6. Check that you machine isn't generating background traffic that interferes with the tests. In particular, disable networking in your OS, manually kill your DHCP client/server, etc. See also Before every usage.

7. Confirm that you are connecting to the correct network. Double-check client.conf.

8. Make sure the AP being tested is using (AES-)CCMP as the encryption algorithm. Other encryption algorithms such as TKIP or GCMP are not supported.

9. If you updated the code using git, execute ./build.sh again (see Prerequisites)?

10. If your Wi-Fi dongle is unreliable, use it from a live CD or USB. A virtual machine can be unreliable.

11. Confirm using a second monitor interface that no other frames are sent in between fragments. For instance, I found that my Intel device sometimes sends Block Ack Response Action frames between fragments, and this interfered with the defragmentation process of the device under test.

Extended Vulnerability Tests

Optionally you can also run more advanced tests. These have a lower chance of uncovering new vulnerabilities, but against more exotic implementations these might reveal attack variants that the normal tests can't detect.

Command	Short description
A-MSDU attacks (§3)
ping I,E --fake-amsdu	If this test succeeds, the A-MSDU flag is ignored (Section 3.5).
Mixed key attacks (§4)
ping I,E,R,AE	In case the delay between fragments must be small.
ping I,E,R,AE --rekey-plaintext	If the device performs the rekey handshake in plaintext.
ping I,E,R,AE --rekey-req --rekey-plain	Same as above, and actively request a rekey as client.
ping I,E,R,AE --rekey-early-install	Install the new key before sending message 4 as an AP.
ping I,R,BE,AE --freebsd	Mixed key attack against FreeBSD.
ping I,R,BE,E	In case the new key is installed relatively late.
Mixed plain/encrypt attack (§6.3)
ping I,E,P,E	Ping with first frag. encrypted, second plaintext, third encrypted.
linux-plain 3	Same as linux-plain but decoy fragment is sent using QoS priority 3.
EAPOL forwarding attack (§6.4)
eapol-inject L,00:11:22:33:44:55	Try to make the AP send fragmented frames by EAPOL injection.
No fragmentation support attack (§6.6)
ping I,E,D	Send ping inside an encrypted first fragment (no 2nd fragment).
ping I,D,E	Send ping inside an encrypted second fragment (no 1st fragment).
Broadcast fragment attack (§6.7)
ping D,SP --bcast-ra	Ping in a 2nd plaintext broadcasted fragment before 4-way handshake.
ping D,BP --bcast-ra	Ping in a 2nd plaintext broadcasted fragment during 4-way handshake.
ping I,P --bcast-ra	Ping in a plaintext broadcast Wi-Fi frame after 4-way handshake.
macos CC	Experimental attack against macos.
macos BB	Same as above, but inject during 4-way handshake.
A-MSDUs EAPOL attack (§6.8)
eapol-amsdu [M,]BB --bcast-dst	Same as "eapol-amsdu [M,]BB" but ping is broadcasted.
eapol-amsdu [M,]I,CC --bcast-dst	Same as "eapol-amsdu [M,]I,CC" but ping is broadcasted.
eapol-amsdu SS	Same as "eapol-amsd BB" but inject frame before 4-way handshake.
eapol-amsdu AA	Same as "eapol-amsd BB" but inject frame right after 4-way handshake.

Advanced Usage

Network card injection test

Injection and hwsim mode

The script test-injection.py can be used to test whether frames are properly injected when using injection mode:

./test-injection.py wlan0 wlan1

Here we test if network card wlan0 properly injects frames and we use network card wlan1 to monitor whether frames are properly injected. Note that both interfaces need to support monitor mode for this test script to work.

In case you do not have a second network card, you can execute a partial injection test using:

./test-injection.py wlan0

Unfortunately, the above test can only test if the kernel overwrites fields of injected frames, it cannot test whether the firmware or wireless chip itself overwrites fields.

Mixed mode

To test whether a network card properly injects frames in mixed mode, you can execute the following two commands:

./fragattack wlan0 ping --inject-test wlan1
./fragattack wlan0 ping --inject-test wlan1 --ap

Here we test whether wlan0 properly injects frames by monitoring the injected frames using the second network card wlan1. The first command tests if frames are properly injected when using mixed mode while acting as a client, and the second command when using mixed mode while acting as an AP. In order to start the test, the client must be able to connect to a network, and the AP waits until a client is connecting before starting the injection tests.

If you also want to test the retransmission behaviour of wlan0 in mixed mode you can execute:

./fragattack wlan0 ping --inject-test-postauth wlan1
./fragattack wlan0 ping --inject-test-postauth wlan1 --ap

In case you do not have a second network card, you can execute a partial mixed mode injection test using:

./fragattack wlan0 ping --inject-selftest
./fragattack wlan0 ping --inject-selftest --ap

Unfortunately, the above tests can only test if the kernel overwrites fields of injected frames, it cannot test whether the firmware or wireless chip itself overwrites fields.

Interpreting test results

In case the injection tests are not working, try to first unplug your Wi-Fi dongles and reboot your computer. If the tests still fail, try to use a different network card to monitor whether frames are injected properly. I observed that sometimes frames are in fact properly injected, but the second network card (wlan1 in the above examples) did not recieve most injected frames. What also helps is running the tests and experiments in an environment (and on a channel) with little background noise.

The test script will give detailed output on which tests succeeded or failed, and will conclude by outputting either "==> The most important tests have been passed successfully" or a message indicating that either important tests failed or that it couldn't capture certain inject frames. When certain injected frames could not be captures, this by either be because of background noise, or because the network card being tested is unable to properly inject certain frames (e.g. the firmware of the Intel AX200 crashes when injecting fragmented frames).

Static IP Configuration

In case the device you are testing doesn't support DHCP, you can manually specify the IP addresses that the test tool should use. For example:

./fragattack.py wlan0 ping --inject wlan1 [--ap] --ip 192.168.100.10 --peerip 192.168.100.1

Here the test tool will use IP address 192.168.100.10, and it will inject a ping request to the peer IP address 192.168.100.1.

Using static IP address also enables the test tool to inject frames before the device being tested has requested an IP address, which is required in certain tests.

Alternative network cards

In case you cannot get access to one of the recommended wireless network cards, a second option is to get a network card that uses the same drivers on Linux. In particular, you can try:

1. Network cards that use ath9k_htc

2. Network cards that use carl9170

3. Network cards that use iwlmvm.

I recommend cards based on ath9khtc. Not all cards that use iwlmvm will be compatible. When using an alternative network card, I strongly recommend to first run the injection tests to confirm that the network card is compatible.

5 GHz support

In order to use the test tool on 5 GHz channels the network card being used must allow the injection of frames in the 5 GHz channel. Unfortunately, this is not always possible due to regulatory constraints. To see on which channels you can inject frames you can execute iw list and look under Frequencies for channels that are not marked as disabled, no IR, or radar detection. Note that these conditions may depend on your network card, the current configured country, and the AP you are connected to. For more information see, for example, the Arch Linux documentation.

Although I have not yet encountered a device that behaved differently in the 2.4 GHz band compared to the 5 GHz band, this may occur in practice if different drivers are used to handle both bands. If you encounter such a case please let us know. Since I have not yet observed such differences between the 2.4 and 5 GHz band I believe that it is sufficient to only test only one of these bands.

Note that in mixed mode the Linux kernel may not allow the injection of frames even though it is allowed to send normal frames. This is because in ieee80211_monitor_start_xmit the kernel refuses to inject frames when cfg80211_reg_can_beacon returns false. As a result, Linux may refuse to inject frames even though this is actually allowed. Making cfg80211_reg_can_beacon return true under the correct conditions prevents this bug.

Notes on device support

ath9k_htc

The Technoethical N150 HGA, TP-Link TL-WN722N v1.x, and Alfa AWUS036NHA, all use the ath9k_htc driver.

For me these devices worked fairly well in a virtual machine, although like with all devices they are more reliably when used natively. When using a VM, I recommend to configure the VM to use a USB2.0 controller, since that appeared more stable (at least with VirtualBox).

In recent kernels there was a (now fixed) regression with the ath9k_htc driver causing it not te work. Simply use an up-to-date kernel to avoid this issue. The patch that fixed this regression is: https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-wireless/msg200825.html

AWUS036ACM

If for some reason Linux does not automatically recognize this device, execute sudo modprobe mt76x2u to manually load the driver. I found that, at least on my devices, this dongle was unstable when connected to a USB3.0 ports. Others seems to have reported similar issues with this dongle. When connected to a USB2.0 port I found this dongle to be reliable.

AWUS036ACH

This device is generally not supported by default in most Linux distributions and requires manual installation of drivers. I tested it on Kali Linux after installing the driver using the instructions on https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8812au. Before plugging in the device, you must execute modprobe 88XXau rtw_monitor_retransmit=1. Once my patches have reached upstream repositories on Kali Linux you can simply install the driver using sudo apt install realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms, but for now you must manually install the driver from GitHub.

Intel AX200

I tested the Intel AX200 as well and found that it is not compatible with the test tool: its firmware crashes after sending a fragmented frame. If an Intel developer is reading this, please update the firmware and make it possible to inject fragmented frames.

Hwsim mode details

Warning: this is currently an experimental mode, only use it for research purposes.

This mode requires only one network card that supports monitor mode, and in contrast to mixed mode, the network card does not have to support virtual interfaces. The disadvantage is that in this mode frames are handled a bit slower, and it is not reliable when the network card does not acknowledge frames:

• Due to commit 1672c0e31917 ("mac80211: start auth/assoc timeout on frame status") authentication as a client will instantly timeout, meaning we cannot use hwsim mode as a client currently. TODO: We need to patch the kernel to avoid this timeout.

• If we test a client that uses commit 1672c0e31917 ("mac80211: start auth/assoc timeout on frame status") we (as an AP) must acknowledge frames sent towards us. Otherwise the client being tested will be unable to connected. TODO: Test which devices acknowledge frames in monitor mode, and test iw set wlanX monitor active.

• Certain APs will also require that authentication and association frames are acknowlegded by the client. This that that we (as a client) must again acknowledge frames sent towards us. TODO: Test which devices acknowledge frames in monitor mode, and test iw set wlanX monitor active.

• For some strange reason, the Intel/mvm cannot receive data frames from Android/iPhone/iPad after 4-way HS? This is a very strange bug. TODO: Investigate this further.

Before using this mode, create two virtual network cards:

./hwsim.sh

This will output the two created virtual "hwsim" interfaces, for example wlan1 and wlan2. When testing an AP in this mode, you must first search for the channel of the AP, and put the real network card on this channel:

./scan.sh wlan0
ifconfig wlan0 down
iw wlan0 set type monitor
ifconfig wlan0 up
# Pick the channel that the AP is on (in this example 11)
iw wlan0 set channel 11

Here wlan0 refers to the real network card (not an interface created by hwsim.sh). hen testing a client, do do not first have to configure the channel (it is taken from hostapd.conf). You can now start the test tool as follows:

./fragattack wlan0 --hwsim wlan1,wlan2 [--ap] $COMMAND

After the tool executed, you can directly run it again with a new $COMMAND.