WiFi (DoS) Disclaimer

Danger - Important

Warning - Recommendations

Denial of service attacks tend to be some of the more dangerous techniques to practice or try to get hands on experience with. It is very easy to fat finger a mac address and take down a device that you do not have lawful permission to test against. For this reason, unless you are an adequately trained professional and adequately equipped to negate any potential inadvertent risks, it is advised to not attempt these techniques (even in a lab environment).

Warning - Inadvertent Outages

This technique can cause outages for any nearby WiFi-enabled devices. It is strongly advised to not attempt this technique unless you are adequately trained and equipped to do so safely and be in compliance with local laws and regulations.

Warning - Regarding Legality

Performing this technique may not be in compliance with relevant laws and regulation. Please ensure that you confirm that any experiments or exercises are done within the bounds of the laws and regulations that apply to your location.

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Description

Quote - HackTricks

Sending authentication frames to all accessible Access Points (APs) within range can overload these APs, especially when numerous clients are involved. This intense traffic can lead to system instability, causing some APs to freeze or even reset.

Source: HackTricks - Pentesting WiFi

Usage / Instructions

Requirements

  • WiFi card capable of entering monitor mode
  • Aircrack tool suite installed
  • mdk4 tool installed
  • Legal authorization to perform technique against or within range of other WiFi-enabled devices and access points.

Example - Authentication Overloading with mdk4

mdk4 wlan0mon a [-i EF:60:69:D7:69:2F] [-a EF:60:69:D7:69:2F] -m
  • -a <mac-address> Target BSSID to DoS
  • -i <mac-address> BSSID to capture and repeat packets from authenticated clients
  • -m Only use real mac addresses Note: Cannot use -a and -i option at the same time.

    Source: HackTricks - Pentesting WiFi Tool: GitHub - aircrack-ng/mdk4

Further Reading / Resources

  • None / TBA

Operational Security / Red Teaming Information

  • None / TBA

Labs / Practice

  • None / TBA