Wireless networks are increasingly targeted by sophisticated attacks exploiting protocol weaknesses and insecure configurations. Among these, virtual node (fake access point) creation and unauthorized network access pose significant threats to confidentiality and data integrity. In this study, WiFi network vulnerabilities through controlled laboratory experiments, simulating both attack and prevention scenarios are investigated using open-source tools Airmon-ng, Wifite, and Wireshark. The study has evaluated how attackers can generate rogue nodes and capture handshakes to compromise WPA2 and WPA3 networks under varying password complexities. The experiments have demonstrated that weakly configured networks are highly susceptible to de–authentication and handshake capture attacks, while preventive measures such as MAC filtering, SSID monitoring, and strong passphrase enforcement significantly reduce attack success rates. The findings demonstrate that rogue access points introduce measurable degradation in network performance, including increased packet loss, latency, and throughput reduction. These empirical results contribute to a deeper understanding of virtual–node attack mechanisms and provide actionable insights for developing effective countermeasures to strengthen wireless network security. This study helps readers understand how rogue access point attacks operate and how to apply effective countermeasures to secure WiFi networks. This study contributes to the scholarly understanding of rogue access point attack dynamics by elucidating their operational processes and demonstrating the application of empirically validated counter measures that enhance the overall security posture of wireless networks.
Tarımer et al. (Sat,) studied this question.