Shay Friel

Cybersecurity is neglected by a large amount of people, many are unaware of the threat and do not even realise the effect it has or may have on them in the future. Investing a short amount of time maintaining the security on your IoT (The Internet of Things) devices has never been more important, with cybercrime rapidly on the rise every year and a cyberattack taken place every minute. 

The aim of this project was to build a home network and attempt to penetrate the network through a series of experiments with different cyberattacks. This would identify the vulnerabilities and provide the solutions to maintain a secure network. 

A key finding in the research was Mathy Vanhoef’s key reinstallation attack, where the third step in the 4-way handshake is exploited by thinking it is generating a new encryption key but instead using a previously issued encryption key from a familiar device. He also explains how all Wi-Fi protocol is likely affected by the key reinstallation attack, as it’s a problem in the Wi-Fi standard itself.