Man-in-the-Middle attack

MITM attacks are probably one of most potent attacks on a WLAN system. There are different configurations that can be used to conduct the attack. We will use the most common one—the attacker is connected to the Internet using a wired LAN and is creating a fake access point on his client card. This access point broadcasts an SSID similar to a local hotspot in the vicinity. A user may accidently get connected to this fake access point (or can be forced to using the higher signal strength theory we discussed in the previous chapters) and may continue to believe that he is connected to the legitimate access point.

The attacker can now transparently forward all the user's traffic over the Internet using the bridge he has created between the wired and wireless interfaces.

In the following lab exercise, we will simulate this attack.