In this attack scenario, the attacker actively transmits on the Wi-Fi channel to prevent users from transmitting or receiving data from the targeted Wi-Fi network. There are several known techniques to perform this attack – for example: the attacker may flood the Wi-Fi access point (e.g. the retransmission device) with deauthentication frames. Another method is to transmit high levels of noise on the RF band used by the Wi-Fi network.
Likelihood Of Attack
Medium
Typical Severity
High
Relationships
This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Standard Attack Pattern - A standard level attack pattern in CAPEC is focused on a specific methodology or technique used in an attack. It is often seen as a singular piece of a fully executed attack. A standard attack pattern is meant to provide sufficient details to understand the specific technique and how it attempts to accomplish a desired goal. A standard level attack pattern is a specific type of a more abstract meta level attack pattern.
Lack of authentication on deauthentication/disassociation packets on 802.11-based networks
Skills Required
[Level: Low]
This attack can be performed by low capability attackers with freely available tools. Commercial tools are also available that can target select networks or all WiFi networks within a range of several miles.
Consequences
This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the attack pattern. The Scope identifies the security property that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in their attack. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a pattern will be used to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.
Scope
Impact
Likelihood
Availability
Other
Availability
Resource Consumption
Mitigations
Countermeasures have been proposed for both disassociation flooding and RF jamming, however these countermeasures are not standardized and would need to be supported on both the retransmission device and the handset in order to be effective. Commercial products are not currently available that support jamming countermeasures for Wi-Fi.
Related Weaknesses
A Related Weakness relationship associates a weakness with this attack pattern. Each association implies a weakness that must exist for a given attack to be successful. If multiple weaknesses are associated with the attack pattern, then any of the weaknesses (but not necessarily all) may be present for the attack to be successful. Each related weakness is identified by a CWE identifier.
Communications: CWE does not currently cover Communications in the way it is presented by CAPEC. Therefore, no mapping between the two corpuses can be made at this time.