WPA Versions and Modes

Which WPA mode you run determines which AirSnitch attacks work and which don’t. Summary up front:

Mode	Machine-on-the-side	Rogue AP	Abusing GTK	Gateway Bouncing	Port Stealing	Broadcast Reflection
WPA2-Personal (PSK)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
WPA3-Personal (SAE)	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
WPA2-Enterprise	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓
WPA3-Enterprise	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓
WPA3-PK (Public Key)	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓

(Synthesised from NDSS’26 Table VI and §IV-A.)

The headline: switching from WPA2 to WPA3 only blocks two of the eight attacks. Five attacks work against every encrypted mode. (README §1.)

WPA2-Personal (WPA2-PSK)

Single shared passphrase. PMK = PBKDF2(passphrase, SSID). Identical for every client.

Most exposed mode. Any insider with the passphrase can derive any other client’s PTK by sniffing their EAPOL frames → machine-on-the-side.
Forced re-handshake via spoofed deauth (no MFP).

This is what most home Wi-Fi runs.

WPA3-Personal (WPA3-SAE)

Same shared passphrase, but the PMK is established via the Dragonfly handshake. Each session derives a unique PMK with forward secrecy. Passive PMK derivation by another client is not feasible.

Defeats machine-on-the-side.
Does not defeat rogue AP, because anyone with the passphrase can stand up a clone.
Mandatory MFP raises the bar for forced re-handshake but does not prevent rogue-AP induction (channel-switch beacon trick still works).

WPA2-Enterprise / WPA3-Enterprise

Per-user credentials authenticated against a RADIUS server using one of the EAP methods (PEAP-MSCHAPv2, EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS). The PMK is derived from the EAP MSK, unique per session, never derivable from another client’s traffic.

Defeats machine-on-the-side.
Defeats rogue AP if the EAP method authenticates the server (e.g. EAP-TLS with proper CA pinning, or PEAP / EAP-TTLS configured to verify the RADIUS cert). Misconfigured clients can still be tricked by a rogue AP advertising the same SSID — see the misconfiguration section in the PEAP / EAP-TTLS page.
Does not defeat any of the L3/switching attacks. The AirSnitch authors leak WPA2-Enterprise traffic in plaintext on a real university network (NDSS’26 §VII-F).

The home-router lesson: turning on a RADIUS server (often built into the router) gets you out of the worst exposure of WPA2-PSK.

WPA3-PK (WPA3 Public Key)

Variant of SAE where the shared “passphrase” is actually derived from a public key. The corresponding private key lives on the AP. An attacker who only has the passphrase cannot stand up a rogue AP that the client will trust, because the client will reject the handshake without the private key.

Defeats rogue AP under WPA3.
Same caveats as the rest: doesn’t help against L3/switching attacks.

Mode-independent attacks

Five of AirSnitch’s attacks don’t care which encryption you use:

Attack	Why it’s mode-independent
Abusing GTK	GTK is shared in every WPA mode by default; the attack requires association, not a specific cipher
Gateway Bouncing	Pure L3 attack; encryption is terminated at the AP
Port Stealing	Exploits the AP’s bridge FDB after decryption
Broadcast Reflection	Exploits the AP’s broadcast-handling logic after decryption
Inter-NIC relaying / port-restoration helpers	Pure switching/forwarding manipulation

TKIP, CCMP, GCMP

Cipher suites under WPA. AirSnitch is independent of cipher choice: it does not break the cipher. CCMP-128 (default for WPA2) and GCMP-256 (WPA3) both terminate at the AP, where AirSnitch attacks the layer above (NDSS’26 §IV introduction).

WEP is still considered: the artifact appendix demonstrates exploits work even when the AP runs WEP, mostly to show that “switch to a stronger cipher” is the wrong fix. (README §1, “These attacks bypass Wi-Fi encryption, meaning that simply using WPA1/2/3 does not, on its own, prevent these attacks.”)

gengstah