802.11 Standards Family (Wi-Fi 1 → Wi-Fi 7)

The 802.11 amendments that define what each generation of Wi-Fi hardware actually does on the air, and which ones matter for offence.

Status: drafting Related: Frequency bands and channels, OFDM / OFDMA / MU-MIMO, Frame types

Generation map

Wi-Fi name	Amendment	Year	Bands	Max link rate	Modulation / key features
(legacy)	802.11	1997	2.4 GHz	2 Mbps	DSSS / FHSS
Wi-Fi 1	802.11b	1999	2.4 GHz	11 Mbps	DSSS, CCK
Wi-Fi 2	802.11a	1999	5 GHz	54 Mbps	OFDM (52 sub-carriers)
Wi-Fi 3	802.11g	2003	2.4 GHz	54 Mbps	OFDM on 2.4 GHz
Wi-Fi 4	802.11n	2009	2.4 / 5 GHz	600 Mbps	MIMO (4×4), 40 MHz, A-MPDU/A-MSDU
Wi-Fi 5	802.11ac	2013	5 GHz	~6.9 Gbps	80/160 MHz, 256-QAM, MU-MIMO (DL)
Wi-Fi 6	802.11ax	2019	2.4 / 5 GHz	~9.6 Gbps	OFDMA, 1024-QAM, MU-MIMO (UL+DL), TWT, BSS coloring
Wi-Fi 6E	802.11ax (6 GHz)	2020	+ 6 GHz	~9.6 Gbps	Same PHY as 6, new clean 6 GHz spectrum, WPA3 mandatory
Wi-Fi 7	802.11be	2024	2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz	~46 Gbps	320 MHz, 4096-QAM, MLO (Multi-Link Operation), preamble puncturing

Amendment	What it adds
802.11i (2004)	RSN — WPA2/CCMP. Defines the 4-way handshake.
802.11e (2005)	QoS / WMM — access categories, EDCA.
802.11r (2008)	Fast BSS Transition — sub-50 ms roaming.
802.11k (2008)	Radio Resource Management — neighbour reports.
802.11v (2011)	BSS Transition Management, WNM-Sleep, BSS Max Idle.
802.11w (2009)	MFP — protected management frames.
802.11s (2011)	Mesh networking.
802.11u (2011)	WNM / ANQP — pre-association queries (Hotspot 2.0 base).
802.11ad / ay	60 GHz (WiGig) — short-range, line-of-sight.
802.11az	Fine timing measurement (positioning).
802.11ba	Wake-up radio.
802.11bh / bi	MAC-randomisation / privacy amendments (in progress).

Capability discovery from beacons. Beacons advertise the supported amendments via fixed fields and Information Elements (HT Capabilities, VHT Capabilities, HE Capabilities, EHT Capabilities, RSN, Mobility Domain). A scan tells you the standards in play before you decide on attack class.
Wi-Fi 6E / Wi-Fi 7 force WPA3. The Wi-Fi Alliance certification rules require WPA3-only operation on 6 GHz. PSK-era attacks (machine-on-the-side) don’t apply on 6 GHz networks unless the 2.4/5 GHz BSSes of the same SSID downgrade.
Multi-Link Operation (Wi-Fi 7) changes the threat model. A single client uses two or three radios on different bands as one logical link. PTK is per-MLD (multi-link device), not per-link, with implications for replay / nonce reuse research that haven’t been fully studied yet.
Aggregation amendments are exploit surface. A-MSDU and A-MPDU (introduced in 802.11n) are the substrate for FragAttacks — an unauthenticated A-MSDU bit lets a frame be reinterpreted as a sub-frame container.