Concern regarding deauthentication attacks; potential to make Wifi cameras useless

For a long time, network professionals have known how to inject deauthentication packets into an 802.11 b/g/n network.

This technique used to be in the realm of skilled hackers, using complex software, attacking networks that have something of value. But it can also be used for a denial of service attack against Wifi cameras, such as Ring products.

I wasn’t very worried about super hackers attacking my Ring wireless cameras, but it seems that the tools for a “deauth” attack have been dumbed down to the level where skill is no longer required. Anyone who knows how to shop on Amazon can buy a “deauth watch” for as little as $65, such as this one: https://a.co/d/h0tzW1D Thanks to commodity electronics, this type of attack is literally child’s play.

So far, the industry’s response to “deauth” vulnerability is “Protected Management Frames” (PMF). There are wireless access points that can enable this feature, but others have commented that Ring cameras won’t work with it enabled.

I don’t expect Ring to be completely invulnerable to every possible cyber attack, but deauthentication is an old method, now made trivial to implement and widely available. This has to be fixed. I would like to know what the solution is for current owners of Ring wireless products. If I need a new wireless router, so be it. But it looks like the cameras would need at least some kind of software update to work with PMF or accomplish the same goal some other way.

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