Wireless Security & Authentication Flashcards

In a WPA2-Enterprise deployment, what role does the wireless access point play in the 802.1X authentication process?

Answer: Authenticator

The AP acts as the 802.1X authenticator, relaying EAP messages between the supplicant (client) and the RADIUS authentication server.

What is the purpose of the Group Temporal Key (GTK) distributed during the 802.11 group key handshake?

Answer: Encrypt multicast and broadcast frames sent by the AP

The GTK is a shared key distributed to all associated clients and used by the AP to encrypt multicast and broadcast frames.

Which type of wireless attack passively captures encrypted traffic to perform an offline dictionary attack against a WPA2-Personal passphrase?

Answer: Deauthentication + four-way handshake capture

An attacker forces a client to reauthenticate using deauth frames, captures the four-way handshake, then attempts offline dictionary/brute-force attacks against the passphrase.

What is the main security improvement of WPA3-Enterprise over WPA2-Enterprise?

Answer: Mandatory use of 192-bit cryptographic security suite (CNSA)

WPA3-Enterprise mandates a 192-bit minimum security mode using the Commercial National Security Algorithm (CNSA) suite for stronger cryptographic protection.

What does the term 'MAC address filtering' provide as a wireless security control?

Answer: Weak access control that can be bypassed by MAC spoofing

MAC filtering provides only weak access control because MAC addresses are transmitted in plaintext and can easily be spoofed by an attacker.

Which captive portal authentication method provides the highest level of security for guest wireless access?

Answer: HTTPS captive portal with unique per-user credentials

An HTTPS captive portal with unique per-user credentials encrypts the login exchange and provides individual accountability for guest network access.