## 5 Discussion
### Addressing the Research Questions  
A discussion of our findings is presented on the research questions below:  
**Q1:**: To what extent is the current implementation of WLAN effective in resisting APTs? Securing WLANs poses a significant challenge, mainly due to the numerous potential attack pathways they present. Compromising any device connected to a WLAN could potentially compromise the entire network. This paper explored various attack surfaces, including Radio Access Control. It is crucial to implement more robust protocols to improve security. For example, WPA3 is known for its absence of known vulnerabilities, unless it is susceptible to downgrade attacks. In contrast, enterprise-level authentication, which may require username and password signing-ins, is susceptible to social engineering tactics. Therefore, protecting radio network access requires not only the adoption of secure protocols with sufficient key lengths but also the education of users to identify and resist social engineering strategies. Another vulnerable area is the devices within the system. Protecting this surface is particularly challenging due to the wide array of potential attacks, stemming from the diversity of devices, each with different operating systems and software. Moreover, vulnerabilities are dependent not solely on the system but also on the users, whose mistakes can grant unauthorized network access. Hence, social engineering tactics can be highly effective in exploiting such weaknesses. When analyzing attacks coming from the gateway to the ISP side, the firmware of the default gateway plays a crucial role in potential attacks originating from the ISP side, as it can facilitate greater access to the WLAN. Additionally, sniffing traffic from the ISP side can result in the interception of various data types, allowing attackers to gather information such as the types of devices transmitting traffic within the network. This knowledge not only reveals the device types present but also enables attackers to manipulate traffic sent \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c} \hline \hline
**Tool** & **Handshake Capture** & **Evil Twin** & **MitM** & **Deauth Detection** & **Rogue AP Detection** \\ \hline Airgeddon & ✓ & ✓ & ✓ & ✗ & ✗ \\ Wifite2 & ✓ & ✗ & ✗ & ✗ & ✗ \\ Fluxion & ✗ & ✓ & ✓ & ✗ & ✗ \\ Cisco WIPS & ✗ & ✓ & ✓ & ✓ & ✓ \\ Aruba IDS/IPS & ✗ & ✓ & ✓ & ✓ & ✓ \\ Kismet & ✓ & ✗ & ✗ & ✓ & ✓ \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 10: Summary of wireless tools vs. supported attack or defense techniques. back into the WLAN. Such manipulation could involve injecting malicious software, thereby potentially exposing more information or gaining unauthorized access to the WLAN. Given the vast array of potential attack surfaces, defending a WLAN against APTs proves highly challenging. An approach involves reducing the attack surface by scaling down the network, often at the expense of functionality. Consequently, WLANs often become attractive targets for APTs looking for initial network access. **Q2:**: What characteristics make future WLAN implementations resilient and robust in countering APTs? This paper explores various potential entry points for APT attacks and suggests multiple countermeasures that future WLAN implementations can adopt. Firstly, the implementation of robust and secure authentication methods is imperative. Using challenge-response authentication, which avoids transmitting keys or derived keys, offers notable advantages. Additionally, augmenting authentication mechanisms with multifactor authentication, certificate-based authentication, and other approaches can significantly enhance security. This is crucial given that current WLAN setups often rely on authentication with either a pre-shared key or username and password, both of which are vulnerable to exploitation.