An attacker can masquerade as part of WLAN infrastructure by installing their own access point with a suitable WLAN name (SSID) in the vicinity of a WLAN client. A simulated access point of this kind is referred to as a “rogue access point”. If this access point provides the WLAN client with stronger transmission performance than the real access point, the client will use it as its base station if they do not authenticate each other. Furthermore, the real access point may be disabled by a denial-of-service attack. Users will then log into a network that only pretends to be the target network. This makes it possible for an attacker to eavesdrop on communications. Poisoning or spoofing methods can also simulate a false identity for an attacker or redirect network traffic to the attacker's IT systems. This means that the attacker can listen in on and control communications. Particularly in public radio networks (hotspots), rogue access points are a frequently used means of attack.