New RF Transceiver extension for the Metasploit Hardware Bridge API now is available for organizations to detect and scan wireless IoT devices operating outside the standard 802.11 specification. The new extension further broadens the use cases for Metasploit. It is designed for enabling organizations to craft and monitor different RF packets for identifying and assessing the security state of multi-frequency wireless devices more effectively than current tools. It allows pen testers to create and direct “short bursts of interference” at such devices to see how they respond from a security standpoint. One of the greatest threats of wireless IoT devices is the unauthorized access to the information that those devices have access to. For example, a smart lighting system with both RF and WiFi components may be attacked on the RF side to get access to the WiFi side. In addition, many RF-enabled devices fail to serialize or otherwise make sure that each request and response is unique, and therefore are vulnerable to issues like replay attacks. Since organizations are expected to connect a constantly growing range of wireless IoT devices, it’s important to increase the RF testing capabilities.
Thank you Mengqi for this article. I believe this Metasploit extension is a crucial step towards improving IoT security. Pen-testers and companies should take full advantage of this to stay a couple steps ahead of the bad guys.