PT0-001 · Question #203
An attacker is attempting to gain unauthorized access to a WiR network that uses WPA2-PSK Which of the following attack vectors would the attacker MOST likely use?
The correct answer is D. Capture a four-way handshake and crack it. WPA2-PSK authentication relies on a four-way handshake to derive and verify the pairwise transient key, making capture and offline cracking of that handshake the primary attack vector.
Question
An attacker is attempting to gain unauthorized access to a WiR network that uses WPA2-PSK Which of the following attack vectors would the attacker MOST likely use?
Options
- ACapture a three-way handshake and crack it
- BCapture a mobile device and crack its encryption
- CCreate a rogue wireless access point
- DCapture a four-way handshake and crack it
How the community answered
(19 responses)- A5% (1)
- B5% (1)
- D89% (17)
Why each option
WPA2-PSK authentication relies on a four-way handshake to derive and verify the pairwise transient key, making capture and offline cracking of that handshake the primary attack vector.
A three-way handshake belongs to TCP session establishment and has no role in WPA2 authentication; cracking it yields no wireless key material.
Physically capturing a mobile device is a separate, unrelated attack that does not target the WPA2-PSK network protocol itself.
A rogue access point is an evil-twin attack aimed at intercepting traffic or harvesting credentials via a captive portal, not at cracking the WPA2-PSK key through handshake analysis.
WPA2-PSK uses the IEEE 802.11i four-way handshake to authenticate clients and establish session keys. An attacker can capture this handshake passively or by forcing a client to re-authenticate via deauthentication frames, then perform an offline dictionary or brute-force attack against the captured EAPOL frames to recover the pre-shared key.
Concept tested: WPA2-PSK four-way handshake offline attack
Source: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-153/final
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