2.4 Wireless Attacks

Question 1

Wireless DEauthentication

Answer 1

A significant wireless denial of service (DoS) attack

Question 2

802.11 management frames

Answer 2

802.11 wireless includes a number of
management features– Frames that make everything work– You never see them
* Important for the operation of 802.11 wireless– How to find access points, manage QoS, associate/
disassociate with an access point, etc.
* Original wireless standards did not add protection for
management frames– Sent in the clear– No authentication or validation

Question 3

Protecting against deauth attacks

Answer 3

• IEEE has already addressed the problem– 802.11w - July 2014
• Some of the important management frames are encrypted– Disassociate, deauthenticate, channel switch
  announcements, etc.
• Not everything is encrypted– Beacons, probes, authentication, association
• 802.11w is required for 802.11ac compliance

Question 4

Radio frequency (RF) jamming

Answer 4

• Denial of Service– Prevent wireless communication
• Transmit interfering wireless signals– Decrease the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiving
  device– The receiving device can’t hear the good signal
• Sometimes it’s not intentional– Interference, not jamming– Microwave oven, fluorescent lights
• Jamming is intentional– Someone wants your network to not work

Question 5

Wireless jamming

Answer 5

• Many different types– Constant, random bits / Constant, legitimate frames– Data sent at random times - random data and
  legitimate frames– Reactive jamming - only when someone else tries to
  communicate
• Needs to be somewhere close– Difficult to be effective from a distance
• Time to go fox hunting– You’ll need the right equipment to hunt down the jam– Directional antenna, attenuator