Is 2.4Ghz more prone to security vulnerabilities?

[tenista]

Digging more towards whats the best practice for WiFi design. I found some blogs regarding 2.4Ghz which tends to be more prone to security issues. Was wondering is true or just a myth.

[NolanHerring]

It is more prone to interference, not security. The security portion is based on how you have your SSID configured.

Unless....and this is a stretch....they were meaning that its more prone, because 2.4GHz penetrates walls better than 5GHz, so in theory could go 'further' through obstacles, thus allowing some guy in a van in the parking lot to reach it.

So they are talking 'coverage area' being a higher risk.

To that I say, go fly a kite 😃

[BrechtSchamp]

It's the protocols on top that have the vulnerabilities, not the frequencies. For example, Wi-Fi 6 will again use the 2.4GHz band, but that doesn't make it less secure than Wi-Fi 6 on 5GHz. That said, 802.11ac Wave 2 only uses 5GHz, so looking at it that way, there is a relation between the technology used and the band it's using.

Another aspect is that the 2.4GHz band is more crowded, so it may be more prone to indirect attacks. For example, let's say you have a network on the 2.4GHz band called "MyCorp". An attacker may count on the fact that users experience issues on the 2.4GHz band, and create a rogue SSID called "MyCorp-5G" tricking your users to connect to that instead. Just an example, I'm sure there are many more.

2.4GHz also reaches farther, so from that point of view the attack surface is bigger.

[BlakeRichardson]

@tenista 

2.4Ghz travels further due to the wavelength it uses but it is prone to interferance from devices such as cordless phones, microwaves, baby monitors, garage door openers, etc.

5Ghz allows for higher throughput due to its wavelength and isn't affected by devices using the 2.4Ghz spectrum.

If you are going to deploy a new network or even replace equipment becuase you are having issues I would suggest doing a wireless site survey and having a look to see what your environment is like for saturation, background noise and channel overlap.