Patent ID: 7969950

Claim:
A method comprising: detecting an Access Point (AP) previously undetected within a signal coverage area by a device monitoring wireless transmissions between other devices within the signal coverage area; extracting information from a wireless frame transmitted from the AP, the extracted information includes a Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID) of the AP, and a channel number to indicate a particular channel that the wireless frame is detected; and transmitting a first message including the extracted information to a Management Server from the device to begin classification of the AP, the first message includes an AP class parameter to indicate a current classification of the AP, the AP class parameter is set to a Rogue state upon initially detecting the AP; receiving a second message by the device from the Management Server to classify the AP, the second message including at least the BSSID of the AP; and transmitting a third message from the device to the Management Server in response to the second message, the third message including the BSSID of the AP, identifiers for each AP detected within the signal coverage area, a number of wired nodes coupled to each AP, and media access control (MAC) addresses for each of the wired nodes.