On-wire rogue AP detection technique
Other APs that are available in the same area as your own APs are not necessarily rogues. A neighboring AP that has no connection to your network might cause interference, but it is not a security threat. A rogue AP is an unauthorized AP connected to your wired network. This can enable unauthorized access. When rogue AP detection is enabled, the On-wire column in the Rogue AP Monitor list shows a green up-arrow on detected rogues.
Rogue AP monitoring of WiFi client traffic builds a table of WiFi clients and the Access Points that they are communicating through. The FortiGate unit also builds a table of MAC addresses that it sees on the LAN. The FortiGate unit’s on-wire correlation engine constantly compares the MAC addresses seen on the LAN to the MAC addresses seen on the WiFi network.
There are two methods of Rogue AP on-wire detection operating simultaneously: Exact MAC address match and MAC adjacency.
Exact MAC address match
If the same MAC address is seen on the LAN and on the WiFi network, this means that the wireless client is connected to the LAN. If the AP that the client is using is not authorized in the FortiGate unit configuration, that AP is deemed an ‘on-wire’ rogue. This scheme works for non-NAT rogue APs.
MAC adjacency
If an access point is also a router, it applies NAT to WiFi packets. This can make rogue detection more difficult.
However, an AP’s WiFi interface MAC address is usually in the same range as its wired MAC address. So, the MAC adjacency rogue detection method matches LAN and WiFi network MAC addresses that are within a defined numerical distance of each other. By default, the MAC adjacency value is 7. If the AP for these matching MAC addresses is not authorized in the FortiGate unit configuration, that AP is deemed an ‘on-wire’ rogue.
Limitations
On-wire rogue detection has some limitations. There must be at least one WiFi client connected to the suspect AP and continuously sending traffic. If the suspect AP is a router, its WiFi MAC address must be very similar to its Ethernet port MAC address.
Logging
Information about detected rogue APs is logged and uploaded to your FortiAnalyzer unit, if you have one. By default, rogue APs generate an alert level log, unknown APs generate a warning level log. This log information can help you with PCI-DSS compliance requirements.