Hack the Route Start free Open app Wireless and network types
Deauthentication attack and 802.11w
A forged frame that kicks a client off Wi-Fi, and the standard that makes management frames unforgeable.
A deauthentication frame tells a station to disconnect. On WPA2 these management frames carry no
integrity protection, so anyone in range can forge one with the access point's address and the victim drops the
connection — a password-free denial of service, and the lever behind many Wi-Fi attacks (forcing a reconnect to capture
the handshake, or herding a client onto an evil twin). 802.11w (PMF, protected management frames, ieee80211w=2
and reported as pmf=2) cryptographically protects deauth and disassociation frames so a forged one is rejected. It is
optional in WPA2 but mandatory in WPA3, which is why the same forged deauth that drops a WPA2 client is ignored once
the network moves to WPA3.