Introduction

What is Wi-PWN

Wi-PWN is a firmware that performs deauth attacks on inexpensive Arduino boards. The ESP8266 is a cheap microcontroller with built-in Wi-Fi. It contains a powerful 160 MHz processor that can be programmed using Arduino.

Deauthentication attacks are often confused with Wi-Fi jamming, as they both block users from accessing Wi-Fi networks.

How it works

The 802.11 Wi-Fi protocol contains a so-called deauthentication frame. This frame is used to disconnect clients safely from a wireless network.

Because these management packets are unencrypted, you just need the MAC address of the Wi-Fi router and of the client device which you want to disconnect from the network. You don’t need to be in the network or know the password, it’s enough to be in its range.

How to protect against it

With the 802.11w-2009 updated standards, management frames are encrypted by default.

802.11w is rarely used in the real world as both the router and the client device need to support this standard, otherwise they won't be able to connect to the routers.

Updating to the 802.11w standard is often expensive and difficult due to the vast devices of legacy devices not supporting the new standard. Because of the maintenance nightmare, over 95% of devices use the vulnerable 802.11 standard — even though newer devices support the newer standard.