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Is it possible for someone who is doing air monitor mode (ex. using airmon-ng) or is using a rogue device to capture attempted authentication on a Wi-Fi AP ?

For example, I have a home router WPA2-protected with a strong password. There's like more that 20 other wireless networks around me. I want to connect a Wi-Fi device to my home router, but I accidently choose the wrong SSID in the list and I provide my home router passphrase. Is it possible for someone to grab my authentication attempt in any form (hash or cleartext) ? Since the client must communicate the password attempt to the router in order to get validated, the information must pass somewhere in the airs and the AP must receive it. So, I guess it would be possible to grab it somehow ?

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No. With WPA2, the client never actually sends the authentication password over the air to the access point. Instead, the client derives an encryption key from the password, then the access point is able to verify that the client is in possession of the password cryptographically using the key derived from the password. See https://superuser.com/questions/1068126/router-wifi-password-encryption-types-and-why-do-they-matter for more information.

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  • If the accidently chosen SSID happens to be using WEP ? Would it be possible to get attempted password info ?
    – pmbonneau
    Oct 28, 2019 at 18:22
  • How this would be possible with WEP ? Does the attacker would have to bruteforce a hash of the password, would it get the password directly in cleartext or even, would it be able to "calculate" it (like the WEP key is calculated) ?
    – pmbonneau
    Oct 29, 2019 at 14:31

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