Is there a serious vulnerability in ZigBee for smart homes?

Smart Home Network News: Security researchers have found that there is a serious vulnerability in devices using the ZigBee protocol - hackers may invade your smart home, freely control your networked door locks, alarm systems, and even switch your light bulbs .

Figure 1: Hacking

The Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas released a paper pointing out a flaw in the implementation of the ZigBee protocol, which the company said involved multiple types of devices, and hackers could compromise the ZigBee network and “take over the Control of all connected devices within the network."

Figure 2: Invading smart home devices?

"This vulnerability is very serious because the security of the solution is completely dependent on the confidentiality of the network key."

“Tests on light bulbs, motion sensors, temperature sensors and even door locks have also shown that vendors of these devices have deployed the minimum number of features requiring authentication. Other options for increasing security levels are not deployed and are not open to end users. They added.

Figure 3: ZigBee wireless module for various applications

In fact, ZigBee provides multiple security mechanisms. Even R&D engineers who are generally engaged in ZigBee protocol applications can hardly invade the ZigBee network to perform random operations on connected devices. This requires an in-depth understanding of the underlying link and a clear understanding of each protocol. Experts in the component workflow, at the right time, can succeed, which is estimated to be only the working group of the original factory. Let's take a look at what ZigBee provides:

1. Internal construction safety

In order to have a secure network, the ZigBee protocol must first enable the pre-processing security flag and set a default password. This default password can be pre-configured to each device on the network or only to the coordinator and then distributed to all devices on the network. Note that in future cases, this password will be distributed to every device that joins the network, so it becomes an "instantaneous weakness" during network join, but this is often done in a dozen milliseconds.

2, strict network access control

In a secure network, a device is notified of a trust center when it joins the network. The credit center has the option to allow the device to remain on the network or to deny network access to the device. The trust center can determine whether a device is allowed to enter the network by any logical means. One of them is that the trust center only allows one device to join the network in a short window time, which cannot bypass the user's licensing process.

3. Application data security

The Trust Center can update the network password at its own discretion. The application developer modifies the network password update policy. The default trust center implementation can be used to match the developer's specified policy. A sample policy will update the network password at regular intervals. The other will update the network password based on user input.

For high-end professional hackers, perhaps invading smart home devices has the potential to win, but for the average user, this is really not easy to imagine. Besides, what is the significance of spending so much effort?