Singtel, a leading telecom operator in Singapore, today issued a Wi-Fi vulnerability warning to its wireless customers.

Singtel said the vulnerability — identified by SingCert earlier this week — affects implementations of WPA2 wireless security protocols in wireless access points and routers.

“This vulnerability currently has not known to been found in the wild (only in a lab) and would allow an attacker to decrypt all communications between a client and an access point is executed.  Because the attack is against the WPA2 standard itself almost all WIFI related technologies are vulnerable,” Singtel spokesman said.

Singtel said the attack is a ‘Man in the Middle’ MIM attack where a cyber attacker pretends to impersonate the access point and interrupts the 4 way encryption handshake to decrypt WPA2 encryption. Because this attack targets the encryption negotiation process the changing of wifi passwords does not protect the wifi solution.

The telecom operator advised that Singtel broadband subscribers should not seek any software upgrades on their home routers as these are not known to have been subject to the vulnerability in their current mode of installation.

However, customers may have other wifi-enabled devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones etc which may be vulnerable.

Singtel advises that where there are software patches available for these devices, customers should immediately upgrade their firmware or software to guard against potential vulnerabilities.

Singtel said its mobile phone users on both Google Android and Apple IOS can subscribe to Singtel’s Zone Alarm and Mobile Threat Protection software to detect and fend off such threats to their smart phones.