You are designing an IEEE 802.1X solution for a customer, where the network supports a large number of IP phones and printers. You plan to configure MAC address bypass for the phones and printers…

Additional AAA RADIUS traffic is a general scalability concern for any 802.1X deployment and is not specific to the security risk introduced by using MAB for phones and printers.

AAA server placement is an architectural redundancy and latency concern that applies to all 802.1X designs, not a unique security risk posed by MAB specifically.

MAB authenticates devices purely by MAC address, which is trivially spoofable using common OS tools; an attacker who observes an authorized IP phone or printer MAC address on the wire can reprogram their NIC to impersonate that device and bypass 802.1X entirely, gaining the same network access as the legitimate device.

Scaling the MAC address database is an operational concern related to managing authorized endpoints, but it does not represent a security vulnerability inherent to the MAB authentication method.