Items tagged with WiFi
Perhaps it is good to have a normal WiFi name or SSID, as one researcher found. Earlier this week, a new iPhone bug appeared that bricks any iPhone’s WiFi, if connected to a specifically named access point. While something like this could be used maliciously in theory, it would be hard to miss a hotspot named %p%s%s%s%s%n. On June 18th, researcher and reverse engineer Carl Schou found that when he joined his personal WiFi with the SSID set to %p%s%s%s%s%n, it “permanently disabled its WiFi functionality.” Even a reboot or changing the SSID to something else would fix the problem, he tweeted. After some testing, it was eventually found that the only way to fix this would be to...
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ASUS has unveiled a new mesh Wi-Fi system that promises to deliver wireless connectivity everywhere, securely. The product is called the ZenWifi AX Mini (XD4) and can be purchased in a package of three with coverage for up to 4800 square feet and more than five rooms. A smaller system promising to cover up to 3300 square feet and four or more rooms is also available as a two-pack. Both systems support true 8K streaming and Wi-Fi 6, with data throughput of 1800 Mbps. ASUS says that 1800 Mbps is up to 1.4x faster than Wi-Fi 5 routers. One caveat is that a compatible Wi-Fi 6 device is required to achieve those speeds, meaning devices that don't natively support Wi-Fi 6 won't get the full speed the...
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A new trojan has been spotted that is called Emotet. The trojan is described as highly sophisticated and it serves as a loader for other malware or ransomware once installed on a system. The key function of Emotet is that it can deliver custom modules or plugins that are designed for specific tasks. Those tasks include things like stealing Outlook contacts or spreading over a LAN. Recently, Binary Defense discovered a new loader type that takes advantage of the wlanAPI interface to enumerate all WiFi networks in the area. It will then attempt to spread to those networks and infect all the devices it can as it spreads. The protocol for the trojan is based on Google's Protobufs to serialize data...
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With Christmas right around the corner, many Americans are traveling (or about to travel) to spend time with friends and loved ones. And when away from home (or the office), many Americans are tempted to hop onto any available, unsecured public Wi-Fi hotspot with their smartphone, tablet or laptop in order to avoid using previous cellular data. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning Americans about falling into that trap. As part of its Tech Tuesday column, the FBI's Oregon office is presenting a number of tips to keep your devices safe from potential hackers when traveling. While most of these suggestions are practices that many techies always adhere to...
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When it comes to home Wi-Fi routers, the newest trend is the prevalence of mesh routers, which allows you to more evenly spread coverage thanks to the use of a base station and one or more satellites. In the recent weeks, we've seen new low-cost mesh routers like the Netgear Orbi Dual-Band and the Nest Wifi. The folks over at Brigham Young University, however, have developed a new software protocol that modifies Wi-Fi signals in order to greatly extend range. The protocol, which is called On-Off Noise Power Communication (ONPC), abandons that usual convention that speeds of at least 1Mbps are needed to maintain a Wi-Fi signal. With ONPC, speeds of just 1 bit per second are sufficient...
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A new mesh WiFi hardware system for the home debuted at the Amazon hardware event held this week. The system is from a company called Eero, which Amazon acquired earlier this year. At the event, Amazon also announced that Eero hardware will be launching in Europe for customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. The Eero and Eero Pro systems will land in those countries in early November. One of the main goals of the Eero mesh WiFi hardware is to have a system that is very easy to set up. The setup process for the new product uses an app that has all the instructions needed to set the Eero mesh system up in a few minutes. Amazon says that connecting the hardware requires the user to...
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Faster wireless technology is officially ready as the Wi-Fi Alliance announced that Wi-Fi Certified 6 is here. New devices that launch under Wi-Fi 6 are IEEE 802.11ax compliant and bring with them new features and capabilities. The Wi-Fi Alliance says that the new wireless standard offers users "substantially greater" overall performance under challenging environments like stadiums, airports, and industrial parks. Wi-Fi 6 promises security, and interoperability with capacity, performance, and latency improvements compared to past standards. Wi-Fi 6 devices support peak performance in demanding conditions for enterprise users, like those requiring low power and low latency for smart homes or industrial...
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ASUS's new RT-AX88U WFi router is now available from purchase from major retailers in the United States. This router supports the new 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard, which enables ultra fast data transfer speeds and is set to become the new standard for high-end networking devices. The new RT-AX88U is the latest addition to ASUS's wireless router product line, and its design closely follows that of its predecessors such as the RT-AC86U and RT-AC88U. It has four large external antennas that support AIRadar beamforming technology that helps to strengthen the connection to devices at longer distances. Built with a new Broadcom chipset to support the new RT-AX88U network protocols, this router is able to...
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Netgear is rolling out a new WiFi router that aims directly at users who have lots of devices in their homes. The router is called the Nighthawk AX8, and the device is an 8-stream (4x4+4x4) AX6000 WiFi router featuring a quad-core 1.8GHz processor inside. Netgear boasts that the router supports 160MHz Gigabit WiFi for mobile devices and has 2Gbps wired connectivity for local devices, with six Gigabit ports on the router. Dual USB 3.0 ports allow connectivity of storage drives for network storage inside the home or office. Netgear rolls in support for OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiple access), which is a method of spreading signals over a given spectrum band that helps to ensure each...
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As video and image files grow with higher resolution cameras and sensors, it takes an increasing amount of bandwidth to transfer those files around a wireless network. To support the need for faster transfer speeds, the Wi-Fi Alliance is working on ever faster Wi-Fi technology. It has announced Wi-Fi 6, the designation for devices that support the 802.11ax standard. The introduction of Wi-Fi 6 marks the beginning of the Wi-Fi Alliance using generational names for certification programs for all major IEEE 802.11 releases. That means instead of devices being called 802.11ax compatible, they will be called Wi-Fi Certified 6. The new numerical naming convention will be applied retroactively to previous...
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Razer is mostly known for making slick gaming laptops, mice and keyboards, but over the last couple of years the company has branched out greatly. The Razer Phone was recently announced and a second-gen gaming smartphone was teased during an investor conference not long ago. Now it appears that Razer has another new gaming product on the horizon: the Sila high-performance WiFi router. Sila is aimed directly at gamers wanting WiFi coverage that is optimized for high-performance gaming, streaming content, and multimedia content. The router is optimized to prevent lag when gaming on consoles, desktops, mobile devices, and laptops. Razer installs its own FasTrack software on the Sila router and uses...
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Apple unveiled its new 2018 iPhone models earlier this month, and the devices included the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. Not long after the devices were announced, a report surfaced that claimed the devices offered faster downloads than previous generation iPhones. However, some iPhone XS and XS Max buyers are complaining that their devices suffer from bad Wi-Fi and cellular signal strength. Some of the owners of the new devices are claiming that their previous iPhone 7 and iPhone X smartphones offered better signal strength. One Twitter user, Justin Flood, reports that his iPhone 7 had a significantly better signal than his new iPhone XS. He also mentions that Speedtest shows...
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Netgear has announced a new product called the Orbi Voice Smart Speaker and WiFi Mesh Satellite with Built-in Amazon Alexa. That is a very long name to describe a product that can play music for you and answer questions thanks to Amazon Alexa integration. The device is also a mesh hotspot to extend your WiFi network. Orbi Voice can work with any Orbi WiFi system to expand your wireless network around your entire home covering up to 4,500 square feet. Wireless speeds up to 3Gbps are supported. Harman Kardon premium sound is integrated for high-quality music to be played. Netgear says that this is a great way to get music into any room of your home and a smart speaker along with better wireless...
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Sometimes you need to see inside something to check if all is functioning well. That might be while you are rebuilding your car's engine or working on an AC system. Whenever you need to get a look at the inside of something in tight quarters, an endoscope/borescope comes in handy. Amazon has the Depstech Wireless Endoscope on sale right now and it is Wi-Fi enabled with a 2.0MP camera on the end. The camera's "neck" is rigid, so you can bend it and cram it into tight spaces even if the only way to gain access is from underneath. The Depstech Wireless Endoscope works with Android or iOS devices including smartphones and tablets. You need to be using a device with Android 2.3 or higher or iOS 6.0...
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Mesh networking is starting to take a foothold in the home market, but the technology has actually been around for quite sometime. In fact, you have most likely been connected to a mesh network at some point in time without even realizing it. Hotels, universities, and malls have been using the tech for years to keep their students and customers seamlessly connected to the internet over large areas. The cost of setting up and maintaining a large, mesh network is worthwhile for the enterprise and major institutions, but for the rest of us -- until recently -- mesh networks have simply been out of reach. This has kept the technology out of the hands of the average consumer, but over the last couple...
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TP-Link has been making mesh routers in the Deco range for a while now that are designed to give you WiFi access all around a home or office. Last year, the company launched the Deco M5 mesh router and now the company has announced the new Deco M9 Plus. This mesh router is notable because in addition to offering WiFi coverage, it also has an integrated smart home hub for IoT devices. The M9 Plus supports AC2200 speeds and tri-band WiFi with dedicated 5GHz backhaul for faster speeds and dependable connectivity for over 100 devices across the entire home. The router uses TP-Link Mesh technology to eliminate dead spots in the home or office with a single Deco M9 Plus kit with a pair of the access...
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Rivet Networks, the folks behind the Killer networking products, has announced a new feature for its Wi-Fi chips already inside desktop and notebook computers. The tech is called Killer Wireless xTend and will be offered in desktop and laptop systems from MSI, Dell, Acer, Clevo, and Zotac. The xTend tech creates a mesh network by taking advantage of an available Killer Wireless-AC 1550 WiFi module inside notebooks and desktops. xTend allows the WiFi module to seamlessly clone and extend a home network, essentially turning all your computers with the Killer Wireless-AC 1550 hardware inside into range extenders, expanding the range of the network all around the home or office. The mesh network...
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An updated version of the Raspberry Pi Model B has launched, and this new "Plus" version offers a number of upgrades. The official name is the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and it is on sale now for the same $35 price as the previous version of the developer board. Updates include: A 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2 Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0) Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT) Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting Improved thermal management The maximum CPU clock for the B+ is 200MHz higher than the previous version and the wired and wireless network throughput is three times that...
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Alexa is constantly gaining new skills with some coming directly from Amazon, and other skills coming from third-party programmers. One of the latest skills that Alexa has picked up is one that can help you control your wireless network. At MWC 2018, McAfee announced a new Alexa skill that lets you check on the security of your router and network without having to launch an app or go to your computer. The skills enable voice controls for McAfee network security features and include commands like: "Alexa, ask McAfee to scan my network" "Alexa, ask McAfee how many devices are online right now" "Alexa, ask McAfee to block/unblock {Device1}" "Alexa, ask McAfee to pause the internet for {kid1}" These...
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Most of us have had a love-hate relationship with wireless networking. It’s a wonderful technology when all your devices remain connected and perform well in every room of your house, but that’s not always the case. When your devices intermittently drop off or can't find a strong enough signal strength for reliable web browsing, or even if you're suffering through endless video buffering, there isn’t much you can do in that moment, but accept you’re at the mercy of your wireless router. Networking companies sought to fix that with wireless network extenders, but most of those early devices were a messy affair that required separate network names and manually selecting...
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Anyone around back in the '80s when rabbit ears were the main way of tuning in to your favorite shows will know that foil improved reception. A group of researchers has now found that we can apply similar tech to our WiFi routers. The team of researchers used a 3D printer to produce a cheap and customized reflector that directs wireless signals in the direction you need them most. The solution might be just what is needed for enhancing signal strength in certain areas of a home or office. "Through this single solution, we address a number of challenges that plague wireless users," said Xia Zhou, an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth. "Not only do we strengthen wireless signals,...
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This morning we talked about a researcher from KU Leuven University in Belgium who had discovered a major security vulnerability in the WiFi Protected Access II (WPA2) protocol that is used to secure wireless internet traffic. That vulnerability could be used to allow a nefarious attacker to glean confidential details sent over WiFi such as usernames and passwords for secure websites. At least one software company didn't waste any time with an update, with Microsoft confirming that it released an update on October 10th that addressed the exploit. Microsoft has released a patch that will fix the vulnerability on all supported versions of Windows (i.e. Windows 8.1 and later). “We have released...
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