CompTIA Security+ Question D-25

Ann, the network administrator, is receiving reports regarding a particular wireless network in the building. The network was implemented for specific machines issued to the developer department, but the developers are stating that they are having connection issues as well as slow bandwidth. Reviewing the wireless router’s logs, she sees that devices not belonging to the developers are connecting to the access point. Which of the following would BEST alleviate the developer’s reports?

A. Configure the router so that wireless access is based upon the connecting device’s hardware address.
B. Modify the connection’s encryption method so that it is using WEP instead of WPA2.
C. Implement connections via secure tunnel with additional software on the developer’s computers.
D. Configure the router so that its name is not visible to devices scanning for wireless networks.

Answer: A

Explanation:
MAC addresses are also known as an Ethernet hardware address (EHA), hardware address or physical address. Enabling MAC filtering would allow for a WAP to restrict or allow access based on the hardware address of the device.

CompTIA Security+ Question C-97

Peter, the security engineer, would like to prevent wireless attacks on his network. Peter has implemented a security control to limit the connecting MAC addresses to a single port. Which of the following wireless attacks would this address?

A. Interference
B. Man-in-the-middle
C. ARP poisoning
D. Rogue access point

Answer: D

Explanation:
MAC filtering is typically used in wireless networks. In computer networking, MAC Filtering (or GUI filtering, or layer 2 address filtering) refers to a security access control method whereby the 48-bit address assigned to each network card is used to determine access to the network. MAC addresses are uniquely assigned to each card, so using MAC filtering on a network permits and denies network access to specific devices through the use of blacklists and whitelists.

In this question, a rogue access point would need to be able to connect to the network to provide access to network resources. If the MAC address of the rogue access point isn’t allowed to connect to the network port, then the rogue access point will not be able to connect to the network.

CompTIA Security+ Question C-75

Ann, a sales manager, successfully connected her company-issued smartphone to the wireless network in her office without supplying a username/password combination. Upon disconnecting from the wireless network, she attempted to connect her personal tablet computer to the same wireless network and could not connect.
Which of the following is MOST likely the reason?

A. The company wireless is using a MAC filter.
B. The company wireless has SSID broadcast disabled.
C. The company wireless is using WEP.
D. The company wireless is using WPA2.

Answer: A

Explanation:
MAC filtering allows you to include or exclude computers and devices based on their MAC address.

CompTIA Security+ Question C-65

Emily, a security administrator, is noticing a slow down in the wireless network response. Emily launches a wireless sniffer and sees a large number of ARP packets being sent to the AP. Which of the following type of attacks is underway?

A. IV attack
B. Interference
C. Blue jacking
D. Packet sniffing

Answer: A

Explanation:
In this question, it’s likely that someone it trying to crack the wireless network security. An initialization vector is a random number used in combination with a secret key as a means to encrypt data. This number is sometimes referred to as a nonce, or “number occurring once,” as an encryption program uses it only once per session. An initialization vector is used to avoid repetition during the data encryption process, making it impossible for hackers who use dictionary attack to decrypt the exchanged encrypted message by discovering a pattern. This is known as an IV attack. A particular binary sequence may be repeated more than once in a message, and the more it appears, the more the encryption method is discoverable. For example if a one-letter word exists in a message, it may be either “a” or “I” but it can’t be “e” because the word “e” is non-sensical in English, while “a” has a meaning and “I” has a meaning. Repeating the words and letters makes it possible for software to apply a dictionary and discover the binary sequence corresponding to each letter. Using an initialization vector changes the binary sequence corresponding to each letter, enabling the letter “a” to be represented by a particular sequence in the first instance, and then represented by a completely different binary sequence in the second instance.

WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy) is vulnerable to an IV attack. Because RC4 is a stream cipher, the same traffic key must never be used twice. The purpose of an IV, which is transmitted as plain text, is to prevent any repetition, but a 24-bit IV is not long enough to ensure this on a busy network. The way the IV was used also opened WEP to a related key attack. For a 24-bit IV, there is a 50% probability the same IV will repeat after 5000 packets.

CompTIA Security+ Question C-54

A security administrator discovered that all communication over the company’s encrypted wireless network is being captured by savvy employees with a wireless sniffing tool and is then being decrypted in an attempt to steal other employee’s credentials. Which of the following technology is MOST likely in use on the company’s wireless?

A. WPA with TKIP
B. VPN over open wireless
C. WEP128-PSK
D. WPA2-Enterprise

Answer: C

Explanation:
WEP’s major weakness is its use of static encryption keys. When you set up a router with a WEP encryption key, that one key is used by every device on your network to encrypt every packet that’s transmitted. But the fact that packets are encrypted doesn’t prevent them from being intercepted, and due to some esoteric technical flaws it’s entirely possible for an eavesdropper to intercept enough WEP-encrypted packets to eventually deduce what the key is. This problem used to be something you could mitigate by periodically changing the WEP key (which is why routers generally allow you to store up to four keys). But few bother to do this because changing WEP keys is inconvenient and time-consuming because it has to be done not just on the router, but on every device that connects to it. As a result, most people just set up a single key and then continue using it ad infinitum.

Even worse, for those that do change the WEP key, new research and developments reinforce how even changing WEP keys frequently is no longer sufficient to protect a WLAN. The process of ‘cracking’ a WEP key used to require that a malicious hacker intercept millions of packets plus spend a fair amount of time and computing power. Researchers in the computer science department of a German university recently demonstrated the capability to compromise a WEP-protected network very quickly. After spending less than a minute intercepting data (fewer than 100,000 packets in all) they were able to compromise a WEP key in just three seconds.

CompTIA Security+ Question C-32

Which of the following would MOST likely involve GPS?

A. Wardriving
B. Protocol analyzer
C. Replay attack
D. WPS attack

Answer: A

Explanation:
War driving, also called access point mapping, is the act of locating and possibly exploiting connections to wireless local area networks while driving around a city or elsewhere. To do war driving, you need a vehicle, a computer (which can be a laptop), a wireless Ethernet card set to work in promiscuous mode, and some kind of an antenna which can be mounted on top of or positioned inside the car. A GPS (Global Positioning System) system can be used to accurately map your location while detecting the wireless networks.

CompTIA Security+ Question B-71

Matt, an administrator, is concerned about the wireless network being discovered by war driving.
Which of the following can be done to mitigate this?

A. Enforce a policy for all users to authentic through a biometric device.
B. Disable all SSID broadcasting.
C. Ensure all access points are running the latest firmware.
D. Move all access points into public access areas.

Answer: B

Explanation:
B: War driving is the act of using a detection tool to look for wireless networking signals. The setting making a wireless network closed (or at least hidden) is the disabling of service set identifier (SSID) broadcasting. Thus by disabling all SSID broadcasting you can mitigate the risk of war driving.

CompTIA Security+ Question B-62

A security administrator must implement a network authentication solution which will ensure encryption of user credentials when users enter their username and password to authenticate to the network.
Which of the following should the administrator implement?

A. WPA2 over EAP-TTLS
B. WPA-PSK
C. WPA2 with WPS
D. WEP over EAP-PEAP

Answer: D

Explanation:
D: Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is designed to provide security equivalent to that of a wired network. WEP has vulnerabilities and isn’t considered highly secure. Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) provides a framework for authentication that is often used with wireless networks. Among the five EAP types adopted by the WPA/ WPA2 standard are EAP-TLS, EAP-PSK, EAP­MD5, as well as LEAP and PEAP. PEAP is similar in design to EAP-TTLS, requiring only a server-side PKI certificate to create a secure TLS tunnel to protect user authentication, and uses server-side public key certificates to authenticate the server. It then creates an encrypted TLS tunnel between the client and the authentication server. In most configurations, the keys for this encryption are transported using the server’s public key. The ensuing exchange of authentication information inside the tunnel to authenticate the client is then encrypted and user credentials are safe from eavesdropping.

CompTIA Security+ Question B-56

Which of the following provides the strongest authentication security on a wireless network?

A. MAC filter
B. WPA2
C. WEP
D. Disable SSID broadcast

Answer: B

Explanation:
The Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) authentication protocols were designed to address the core, easy-to-crack problems of WEP.

CompTIA Security+ Question A-86

A malicious user is sniffing a busy encrypted wireless network waiting for an authorized client to connect to it. Only after an authorized client has connected and the hacker was able to capture the client handshake with the AP can the hacker begin a brute force attack to discover the encryption key. Which of the following attacks is taking place?

A. IV attack
B. WEP cracking
C. WPA cracking
D. Rogue AP

Answer: C

Explanation:
There are three steps to penetrating a WPA-protected network. Sniffing Parsing Attacking