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MIT researchers craft defense against wireless man-in-middle attacks

24.08.2011
MIT researchers have devised a protocol to flummox man-in-the-middle attacks against networks. The all-software solution lets wireless radios automatically pair without the use of passwords and without relying on out-of-band techniques such as infrared or video channels.

Dubbed Tamper-evident pairing, or TEP, the technique is based on understanding how man-in-the-middle attacks tamper with wireless messages, and then detects and in some cases blocks the tampering. The researchers suggest that TEP could have detected the reported but still unconfirmed that unfolded at the Defcon conference earlier this month in Las Vegas.

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TEP was devised by a quartet of MIT researchers: Shyamnath Gollakota, Nabeel Ahmed, Nickolaik Zeldovich and , all with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Their research paper, "," was presented at the recent and MIT has its own story about the research . 

The group says TEP can be used to protect communications between devices, or between devices and base stations or access points, for any type of wireless connection.

Today, two wireless devices create a secure channel by swapping cryptographic keys, typically using what's known as the . DHE is a cryptographic protocol designed to let two parties who don't know each other agree on a shared secret cryptographic key over an unsecured channel. Then, they use the key to encrypt their exchanges. ()