Wireless Network Security Flashcards

Which security improvement does WPA3 provide over WPA2 that prevents offline dictionary attacks on captured handshakes?

Answer: Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE)

WPA3 uses SAE (Dragonfly handshake) instead of PSK, which provides forward secrecy and prevents attackers from capturing handshakes for offline brute-force.

In a wireless enterprise environment, 802.1X authentication relies on which three-party model?

Answer: Supplicant, Authenticator, Authentication Server

802.1X uses a supplicant (client device), authenticator (access point), and authentication server (typically RADIUS) to control network access.

A network defender detects an access point broadcasting the corporate SSID but with a different BSSID and stronger signal. This is most likely which type of attack?

Answer: Evil twin attack

An evil twin is a rogue AP mimicking a legitimate SSID/BSSID to lure clients into connecting so the attacker can intercept traffic.

Why is hiding the SSID considered an insufficient security control for wireless networks?

Answer: Clients actively probe for hidden SSIDs, revealing them in probe request frames

Devices configured for a hidden SSID broadcast probe request frames containing the SSID name, making it trivially discoverable with passive sniffing tools.

Which fundamental cryptographic weakness made WEP completely broken and unsuitable for use?

Answer: Short 24-bit Initialization Vector reuse with RC4

WEP's 24-bit IV space is small enough to force IV reuse within minutes on a busy network, allowing attackers to recover the key using statistical attacks on RC4 keystreams.

A wireless IDS (WIDS) has flagged a large number of deauthentication frames targeting all clients on an AP. What is the most likely intent of this activity?

Answer: Forcing clients to reassociate to capture the 4-way WPA2 handshake

Attackers send spoofed deauthentication frames to disconnect clients, forcing them to reauthenticate so the WPA2 4-way handshake can be captured for offline cracking.

Which encryption protocol replaced TKIP in WPA2 and provides stronger confidentiality through AES in counter mode?

Answer: CCMP (Counter Mode CBC-MAC Protocol)

CCMP uses AES in Counter Mode for encryption and CBC-MAC for integrity, making it the mandatory strong cipher suite in WPA2.