My Journey in Wireless Networking: From Foundations to Expertise

In the world of wireless network security, hiding your SSID might seem like an easy way to protect your WiFi network from unauthorized access. This approach of hiding an SSID provides a little more than a false sense of security. In my recent experience of debugging an issue with where random users could see these Hidden SSID’s, lead me to write a blog about why I personally believe it is not a great approach and I am open to opinions. Let’s explore how Hidden SSIDs Works and understand with a real world example!  When you configure your Access Points to hide the SSID/WLAN, you are essentially telling it to stop broadcasting the SSID name in the beacon frames. Under normal circumstances, An AP would periodically broadcast beacon frames containing, SSID Name, Channel, Security Capabilities etc. that helps a STA to choose among the broadcast SSID and associate to it. With Hidden SSID enabled, the AP continues to broadcast beacon frames but removes the network/SSID filed for the resp...

For the Wireless devices to efficiently discover and connect to available networks, there are two fundamental management frames that plays and important roles; Probe Request and Probe Response frames. Let's explore how these management frames work together to help your devices find and connect to wireless networks. What is Probe Request? Probe Requests are management frames sent by a Wireless Client device or a Station (STA) when searching for wireless networks. Think of them as your device calling out "Hello, is anyone there?" This frame serves two main purposes: Finding a specific network, you have connected in the past. Discovering all available networks in coverage area of the device. Types of Probe Requests The types of Probe Request is dictated by the length of the SSID field in the Probe Request. There are two types of Probe Requests:  Directed Probe Request Broadcast Probe Request    Directed Probe Requests: When your device is looking for a specific network, it ...