Embedded Lab

The IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) protocol contains a so-called deauthentication frame that are used as management frames to disconnect the links between stations and access points. Because management frames are often unencrypted, it is fairly easy to perform deauthentication attacks using a WiFi device by spoofing the MAC address of the access point. Alternatively, it can also be done by sending deauthentication frames to the access point with a clients’ MAC address as a destination. Spacehuhn has shared his ESP8266 based implementation of a deauthentication attacker on Github. It can disconnect any client from a network by repeatedly sending fake deauthentication frames. The attacker does not even need to be connected to the same network.

Deauthentication attacker using ESP8266

Basically it’s a device which performs a deauth attack. You select the clients you want to disconnect from their network and start the attack. As long as the attack is running, the selected devices are not able to connect to the network.