Wireless Denial of Service (DoS)

A Deauthentication Attack is a form of Denial of Service (DoS) attack specific to wireless networks, used to forcefully disconnect clients.

How it Works

1. Deauthentication packets are part of the standard 802.11 protocol, intended to allow a client or AP to gracefully terminate a connection.
2. Attackers exploit this by forging deauthentication frames, pretending to be the AP telling the client to disconnect, or pretending to be the client telling the AP to disconnect.
3. Crucially, these management frames are sent unencrypted and unauthenticated in WPA/WPA2 (though WPA3 fixed this).

Use Cases

• DoS: Knocking specific users or all users off a network.
• Handshake Capture: Forcing a target client to reconnect, generating the WPA handshake needed for password cracking.
• Interruption: Creating a temporary gap in communication for traffic modification.