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Recently purchased an Asus AC88U and I noticed that you can require a client pin for a WPS connection to successfully happen. It seems that this would be a pretty secure implementation of WPS.

Are there still insecurities of using this method of WPS?

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The problem is not what the PIN is or how it was set, but how fast it can be cracked. Often this is a matter of hours. The WPS PIN consist of two part, or 8 bytes. The last digit counts as an checksum, leaving 10^7 = 10,000,000 (the actual attack only needs about 10.000 tries since there is a acknowledgement after 4 bytes). This is feasible enough to bruteforce online. If the nonces are known, offline attacks may take a few minutes. Because the nonces are so small, it is possible to scan the entire range in hours.

Update

The PIN authentication method is vulnerable, because of its small domain, thats a given. How the connection between the two parties actually took place is irrelevant (although it has been argued that push mode is more secure). Even if all is good, there have been numerous reports on flawed implementations, reused nonces, nonces based on weak entropy sources and the list goes on.

If a technique is broken you do not continue using it, not even if you conciser it to provide some security. In this case WPS PINs are not only broken (semantic security) but actually compromised. The only thing you can do is disable WPS all together.

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  • This is a client Pin that must be entered into the routers web interface. Does this pose the same issue?
    – Paramount
    Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 22:19
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    AFAIK, the there are 4 WPS authentication methods, one of which is PIN. It is widely know that PIN can be cracked, and there are 2 way to do so. Your access point may give it another name, but PIN must be supported, as stated by the WiFI alliance.
    – Yorick de Wid
    Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 22:24
  • I'm very sorry..just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing. I believe you're referring to the AP pin code..which is vulnerable. I'm referring to a pin that needs to be entered, that the client provides before a device can connect. Asus has a dummy site for their interface (event.asus.com/2012/nw/dummy_ui/en/Advanced_WWPS_Content.html). At the bottem, you will see push button and client pin. My apologizes for this being very specific to one router.
    – Paramount
    Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 22:35
  • @Paramount Your ASUS router my very well use WPS as specified, but see the update why not to proceed this path.
    – Yorick de Wid
    Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 23:12

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