WI-FI IOT modules

[Sergio Rius]

It feels wrong to me when someone says that WiFi (and by extent private networks & appliances) is extremely insecure, being what it is, with so many years of development.
Today there's everything for WiFi. And WiFi is not a protocol nor a transport.
How many here run their inet provider access point? That's dangerous.

Start learning about vlans, network segregation, AP mesh and redundancy.
And there are some tricks for l2 enc & auth.
Got to know the infrastructures of today houses.

[skywatch]

@sergio-rius I agree - but vlans require a new switch and they are too expensive for me (but if you insist I will accept one as a Christmas present!) ;-)

For wifi I think a radius server (which runs well on a pi) is the neccessary level for todays environment.

Bluetooth is not much safer either as there are hacks for that too - that is why I like nrf modules as there is no 'built-in' capability in notebooks, tablets, phones etc to allow some bored kid to mess around with your data.

[Sergio Rius]

Ok, send me your address 😄

RF are not more secure. Kids spoofed garage door key fobs for decades and now are used to do more complicated things with cars. We are the accommodated ones.
Nrfs are also jammed at the same time that WiFi.

A good starting point to learn to do things with network is open-wrt. You can flash almost any router and start playing (and repurpose them for other things). And today you can find retired good L2 switches on eBay on a budget.
DLinks are very friendly, don't jump on a Cisco only bc they're cheap. (Or HP 😱)
Professional & Soho switches have nice features like Poe & unused ports power down. With 48p or more they can be hungry beasts.

[skywatch]

Ok, send me your address 😄

That is sooooooo kind of you! :pray:

RF are not more secure. Kids spoofed garage door key fobs for decades and now are used to do more complicated things with cars. We are the accommodated ones.
Agreed - I wired a lot of GB ethernet around the house, but this is not an option for people who rent or are moving home soon......So RF is really the only option (not including powerline stuff that is just awful at spewing out RF all over the place).

Nrfs are also jammed at the same time that WiFi.

Agreed, but jamming a 2.4-2.525GHz range takes some doing in terms of power required and broadband jamming techniques. It can be done, but not that easily from an attacker who is tens of metres away.

A good starting point to learn to do things with network is open-wrt. You can flash almost any router and start playing (and repurpose them for other things). And today you can find retired good L2 switches on eBay on a budget.
DLinks are very friendly, don't jump on a Cisco only bc they're cheap. (Or HP 😱)

For anyone looking at how easy it can be to hack a wifi should search youtube for "vivek ramachandran" - He did a great series on this topic many years ago and it is all still relevant today!

Professional & Soho switches have nice features like Poe & unused ports power down. With 48p or more they can be hungry beasts.

I have a 48 port switch for the whole house. It has good 'green' features like using only the power it needs on any particular port to make a good connection. It does not support VLAN however :(

[alowhum]

Start learning about vlans, network segregation, AP mesh and redundancy.

The thing is.. my mom doesn't know how to do that. In the real world, using WiFi is just asking for trouble.

[Sergio Rius]

@skywatch said in WI-FI IOT modules:

It does not support VLAN however

It's not a L2 switch? What is it?
In fact, switches only have to comply to 801.1x... whatever for vlan "passthrough" it's the router that's managing it. Also wifi APs has to be able to bring up several ssids and tag them.

I have opnsense virtualized in my server as the router, and a small physical shitty appliance as failover.

But @alowhum mysensors only works bc it's not widely used. You know what I mean. Just imagine a building with as mys installations as WiFis you can get nowadays.
And don't even think on phone telling your mother she has to modify bootloaders, firmwares, to switch a channel that perhaps it's also occupied. It's not realistic.

Anything can be done though. Those are tribulations, like wondering what will be next on cars, electrics or hydrogen.

[NeverDie]

@alowhum said in WI-FI IOT modules:

Start learning about vlans, network segregation, AP mesh and redundancy.

The thing is.. my mom doesn't know how to do that. In the real world, using WiFi is just asking for trouble.

Do you hold the same view of esp-now as you do of wifi? No doubt one does get a bit more security from using a non-stadard Phy, but with Hack-RF available, I suspect you'll get ID'd just the same. Maybe there's even some program that does it automatically. Or may using an RTL-SDR? Not sure if those are powerful enough for the task though.

[scalz]

@alowhum
I get your point, but the problem is very often mothers are not able to secure their LAN too :nerd_face:
I think private datas are as important as home network security.
any ethernet devices like cameras, voice assistants, ssl, unsecured mqtt etc? if so, how to connect them? on same LAN as home computers, phones, with stock isp router and config? it's the easiest but that's not super secure.

I just meant it's a good idea to isolate HA to main LAN when you want good security (lot of good router/firewall solutions). + SBC's should be secured (ssl when enabled, ddos attacks etc)
this should help for wifi devices attacked from internet. If someone would get into, then lot of chance he would have access to your main LAN too.

About local, security, I know a small agriculture company where I live in country field, who got jammed and robbed, no security alarm triggered. I think they may have got the lesson about going wireless. First time I heard about a jamming attack here but this exists.

And if someone is trying to hack your HA RF with a local sniffer, I would be worried about intrusion in my main wifi network, if not secured too.

[zboblamont]

@scalz
"About local, security, I know a small agriculture company where I live in country field, who got jammed and robbed, no security alarm triggered. I think they may have got the lesson about going wireless. First time I heard about a jamming attack here but this exists."

Determined criminals (or government versions) will always be better prepared and equipped to exploit holes and abuse systems no matter how secure they purport to be.
Even a security system wih GSM comms can be locally jammed and wifi nodes interfered if pros want to rob it, but crucially they have to be in close proximity. All you can do is make it difficult for them by extending intrusion detection range to raise the alarm before they can.
For the 99% amateur crooks this is perfetly adequate.
I do not trust reliance on the internet or wifi nodes, as almost every modern kid is intimately acquainted with internet and wifi hacking, so internet access can never be 100% secure and will always be a moving target.

[Sergio Rius]

That's like saying one would never travel by plane because accidents happen. Your simplifying in excess the wifi concept.

Tell me how a WiFi connection can be hacked, if it implements an "inclusion mode"

[alowhum]

@scalz @Sergio-Rius

I get your point, but the problem is very often mothers are not able to secure their LAN too

True. That's why I'm not against WiFi, I'm against any IP-based technology for IoT devices. Which is ironic, since I'm a big fan of the Mozilla WebThings Gateway, a project whose main goal is to connect all kinds of devices to the internet using an open standard. I totally disagree with that goal :-)

mysensors only works bc it's not widely used

True. I use MySensors for prototyping, but if the Candle project would ever turn into actual commercial devices, I'd probably move the wireless technology to Zigbee/Z-Wave/Bluetooth.

So the overall point is that I much prefer network technologies that have smart devices on a separate, dedicated IoT network by design. Because it's separated by design, it means my mom is also better protected, by design.

Then there's another point: these wifi modules have, or are connected to, ARM chips. These powerful chips are way more attractive to malicious parties than an Arduino Nano. That's why I follow the principle of "minimal viable hardware" when I design IoT devices.

[scalz]

I wonder how many people without good router/firewall are running their rpi controller directly on their home LAN, without ddos and ssh protection, running unsecured mqtt (for a mysensors gw, or snips etc for example)+many others ethernet devices like camera, audio clients etc for example. all on same network as computers, phones, without good passwords management policy, better have no malware or key logger, "no, don't click on this!"..

[NeverDie]

@alowhum I hadn't quite looked at it this way before, but if you want something your mom can use which doesn't expose her PC or anything else on her home network, then those self-contained systems with cellular links back to the cloud start to look pretty secure. Then your mom looks at her home automation by opening a browser to some cloud URL, at which point she's' no more at risk than from regular browsing.

On the other hand, I'm guessing that even just regular browsing is higher risk than some hacker invading through your home automation. In other words, yes the risk is not zero, but is it really a dominant concern compared to regular internet browsing or whatever else our mom's might be doing on-line?

[NeverDie]

Well, to alowhum's point, yet another IOT wi-fi (ESP32) exploit was in today's news headlines: https://www.infoq.com/news/2019/12/esp32-fatal-fury/

[alowhum]

self-contained systems with cellular links back to the cloud start to look pretty secure

@neverdie: indeed, that's why the Candle smart lock has a built in GSM modem: to circumvent using the internet, while still allowing you to unlock the door when away from home. Of course, data should never be stored in the cloud.

I'm guessing that even just regular browsing is higher risk than some hacker invading through your home automation

Both are high risk, so I would avoid the trap of 'whataboutism'. Protecting a browser (using add-ons) is at least somewhat possible for end-users. As your ESP32 hack points out, when a hardware device is compromised, most people are completely at the mercy of the supplier.

Basically, it's all about keeping a minimal attack surface:

• Don't use IP based connectivity when zigbee/bluetooth/etc will do.
• Don't use ARM chips when a simple Arduino will do.
• Don't connect to the cloud unless you absolutely have to
• Don't store data in the cloud unless you absolutely have to.

[Sergio Rius]

This article @NeverDie published doesn't involve or talks about WiFi. It talks about physically accessing the chip and messing signals to program it.
That is a nonsense if you already have physically access to the device. And it should apply to any device.

That is what I mean. WiFi has been a nice word in the mouth of everyone for decades. It's so easy to simplify and confuse using a word as a flag.
If a company created a new ideal device for mys and this device would be easily hacked, would not mean that mys is the culprit or bad.

[alowhum]

@Sergio-Rius You're right, it requires physical access. That makes it much less of a risk.

There are other examples where wireless access was compromised though, such as the krakk attack.

If a company created a new ideal device for mys and this device would be easily hacked, would not mean that mys is the culprit or bad.

I don't think anyone is saying WiFi is without virtue. It's just a risk when deployed in IoT devices.

Let's be honest: most vendors use WiFi out of convenience. Both for the end user, and for them. Devices that use WiFi are the logical choice if you want to send data to the cloud directly without any pesky smart home controller acting as a potential gatekeeper and privacy protector. At best, using WiFi is lazy or uncritical design. At its worst, WiFi is the technology of choice if your businessmodel depends on the extraction of data.

[scalz]

@alowhum
of course, like we usually say, use the "best tool for the job".

I think with old 8bits mcu, and retrocompatibility, we may be kind of stuck to improve interesting points because of variety of hw setup (unprecise clocks etc).

Interested to know, when not using IoT, with no physical access (physical access is not secure by design), how can an advanced SOC (ARM, esp32 which is not ARM but tensilica, etc) using proprietary RF, be unsecure ??

I don't think adding plugins in browsers is enough to secure people, it helps sure. I spent lot of time cleaning friends computers and phones, even with plugins enabled.. when I ask them, why did you click/install again bad stuff, they reply it's certainly their wife or childrens :thinking_face:

[Sergio Rius]

Also... Continuing with the supposed vulnerability in the article. If you correctly program the arm chip, not with fancy joke web portal, but with secure protocols, etc... And then as the article says, you set the fuses to avoid firmware changes...
Where extreme risk would be? (Legit question)
Those chips are cheap enough to start consider them as one use.

[Tmaster]

I think i touch the rigth spot! WIFI :relaxed: :relaxed: ~
but my initial post was more about if they are reliable than if they are safe...
even a wood door it's not safe...an kick and you are in ... i don't believe someone will start robbing my house ,by entering in the shutter iot module by an wifi hack and open the shutter,brake doble glass windows and enter....
It's more a question if they are pratical and reliable? tey cost less than half of an zwave module..big point here...
and my main concern is ,are they all day comunicating with router or they usualy sleep? i'm not sure how wi-fi devices like esp8266 work. If they ping the router regularly or what?