A rogue wireless access point that closely imitates a legitimate Wi-Fi network…

2024

A rogue wireless access point that closely imitates a legitimate Wi-Fi network in order to trick users and capture their credentials is an example of which attack?

  1. A.

    Man-in-the-middle attack

  2. B.

    Evil twin attack

  3. C.

    DNS spoofing attack

  4. D.

    ARP poisoning attack

  5. E.

    Smurf attack

Attempted by 39 students.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

Correct answer: Evil twin attack.

The scenario describes a rogue wireless access point that broadcasts an SSID closely imitating a legitimate Wi-Fi network. Victims unknowingly connect to this fake hotspot, after which the attacker can intercept their traffic and harvest credentials (often through a fake captive-portal login page). This is the textbook definition of an evil twin attack.

Why not the others: A man-in-the-middle attack is the broad category of secretly relaying traffic between two parties; the evil twin is one specific wireless way to set up a MITM, but the named attack here is the evil twin. DNS spoofing poisons DNS resolver cache to redirect a name to a wrong IP address. ARP poisoning forges ARP replies on a LAN to map the attacker's MAC to a victim's IP. A Smurf attack is an ICMP-broadcast amplification denial-of-service that floods a victim with traffic. None of these involves a fake Wi-Fi access point impersonating a legitimate network to capture credentials.

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