Forum

Hello all. New to the forums here.

? about Disassociation. I'm studying for CWNA test on Wed next week.

I'm building a study guide based off the objectives - covering each point.

For Association, Reassociation, and Disassociation - I get the first two. But I'm not getting the Disassociation.

I'm looking at the book on page 338 in the section, "Joining a Wireless LAN" but don't see any discussion about disassoc.

Let me add Deauthentication to this as well.

Please fill me in.

Thanks everyone,

Pseudo.

[For Association, Reassociation, and Disassociation - I get the first two. But I'm not getting the Disassociation]

When a STA leaves a service set or roams to another AP within a service set it tells the AP with which it is currently associated that it nolonger wishes to be associated. That way if the AP receives traffic for the STA it can forward it to another AP, if roaming is set up, or ignore it if there was not a roam. Dissassociation is a notification not a request. Although every frame should be followed by an ACK, most vendors do not send ACKs for these.

[Let me add Deauthentication to this as well. ]

Deauthentication will also terminate a connection and is a notification. Here the connection is broken not because of a movement out of a service set, but due to a security reason. A STA MUST be authenticated prior to being associated. If a STA is deauthenticated it can nolonger contend for the media within the service set.

Look up AAA and roaming in the study guide.

There are also DoS attacks which use forged deauthentication and dissassociation frames to disrupt communications.

Good luck on the test.