CAPEC-612

Detailed Abstraction Level
Meta — Very abstract, high-level category
Standard — Specific enough to understand
Detailed — Tied to specific technique Draft MITRE CAPEC Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development
Incomplete — Partially defined
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CAPEC Severity: Low
WiFi MAC Address Tracking

Description

In this attack scenario, the attacker passively listens for WiFi messages and logs the associated Media Access Control (MAC) addresses. These addresses are intended to be unique to each wireless device (although they can be configured and changed by software). Once the attacker is able to associate a MAC address with a particular user or set of users (for example, when attending a public event), the attacker can then scan for that MAC address to track that user in the future.

Prerequisites

None

Mitigations

Automatic randomization of WiFi MAC addresses

Frequent changing of handset and retransmission device

Skills Required

[Low] Open source and commercial software tools are available and several commercial advertising companies routinely set up tools to collect and monitor MAC addresses.