WCTF Day 2 Kickoff

Evil ESP

This talk will be on using the ESP8266 (ESP) Wifi module for nefariously awesome purposes. We intended to perform live demonstrations of the ESP in action and demonstrate how easy it can be to program (once you know how). The goal is to show how game changing a disposable (less than $3) WiFi device with extremely low power draw can be for the security community. The talk will begin with an overview of what the ESP is, how to program it, and some history about the device. We will touch on our trials and tribulations in translating the documentation and how, to a large extent, this is no longer needed. We will demonstrate using the ESP as a quick and dirty WiFi jamming device using both AP BSSID cloning and de-auth injection. A note will be made that this should only be done for research purposes as they may be considered radio jamming by the FCC, and thus illegal. We will talk about why both troubleshooting what is occurring and finding the device responsible for the attack are difficult. We will show demonstration of an ESP based de-auth-o-matic. We will then build on the previous topics and discuss the ESP’s use as a disposable Evil Twin. We will demonstrate using the ESP as an evil AP in a fictitious attack in a residential setting. We will show how combining an ESP with other low cost IoT devices like the HopeRF transceiver can drastically increase the breadth of its capabilities. We will demonstrate a remote controlled de-auth device and how this decreases the risk to someone cracking a WiFi network. We will close with a discussion that builds on the previous topics. We will discuss using the ESP as a disposable node in a low cost mass surveillance mesh network. We will end with a Q\&A session.