Which of the following wireless security measures can an attacker defeat by spoofing certain properties
of their network interface card?
A.
WEP
B.
MAC filtering
C.
Disabled SSID broadcast
D.
TKIP
Explanation:
MAC filtering is typically used in wireless networks. In computer networking, MAC Filtering (or GUI
filtering, or layer 2 address filtering) refers to a security access control method whereby the 48-bit
address assigned to each network card is used to determine access to the network.
MAC addresses are uniquely assigned to each card, so using MAC filtering on a network permits and
denies network access to specific devices through the use of blacklists and whitelists. While the
restriction of network access through the use of lists is straightforward, an individual person is not
identified by a MAC address, rather a device only, so an authorized person will need to have a whitelist
entry for each device that he or she would use to access the network.
While giving a wireless network some additional protection, MAC filtering can be circumvented by
scanning a valid MAC (via airodumping) and then spoofing one’s own MAC into a validated one.
Incorrect Answers:
A: WEP short for Wired Equivalent Privacy is a security protocol for wireless local area networks (WLANs)
defined in the 802.11b standard. WEP is an encryption method to secure the connection. WEP uses a 40-
bit or 104-bit encryption key that must be manually entered on wireless access points and devices.
Although WEP is considered to be a weak security protocol, it is not defeated by spoofing.
C: Disabling SSID broadcast is a security measure that makes the wireless network invisible to computers;
it will not show up in the list of available wireless networks. To connect to the wireless network, you need
to know the SSID of the network and manually enter it. Spoofing is not used to circumvent this security
measure.
D: TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) is an encryption protocol included as part of the IEEE 802.11i
standard for wireless LANs (WLANs). It was designed to provide more secure encryption than the
notoriously weak Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), the original WLAN security protocol. TKIP is the
encryption method used in Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which replaced WEP in WLAN products. TKIP is
not defeated by spoofing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_filtering
http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/TKIP