Authentication Spoofing

A variation of the packet injection attack is authentication spoofing. In order to understand how this attack works, let's take another look at the shared key authentication process.

  • Step 1— The client sends an authentication request to the AP.
  • Step 2— The AP sends the client 128 bytes of challenge text.
  • Step 3— The client encrypts the challenge text with its WEP key and sends the challenge response back to the AP.
  • Step 4— The AP uses its knowledge of the WEP key to validate the challenge response and determine if the client does, in fact, know the shared secret key.
  • Step 5— The AP responds to the client with a success or failure message.

The problem here is that if an attacker can observe this negotiation process, she ...

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