Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Practice Question

A deauthentication or disassociation attack abuses the fact that, in legacy 802.11, management frames are sent in the clear and are neither encrypted nor integrity-protected. The IEEE 802.11w amendment (often exposed in controller GUIs as "Protected Management Frames" or PMF) cryptographically protects deauthentication, disassociation, and other management frames once a client is associated. When both the access point and the client enforce PMF, forged deauth frames are rejected, stopping the attacker from forcing clients off the legitimate WLAN. Disabling SSID broadcast, lowering transmit power, or enabling client isolation may reduce casual discovery or certain lateral-movement risks, but none of those measures validates management frames or blocks spoofed deauthentication packets.