A Rogue Access Point is a Wi-Fi Access Point which is setup by an attacker for the purpose of sniffing wireless network traffic.

802.11 (Wi-Fi) utilizes SSIDs (Service Set IDentifiers) to authenticate NICs to wireless access points.

There is no similar protocol for authenticating wireless access points.

It is possible to place a rogue wireless access point into an 802.11 network. This rogue wireless access point can then be used to hijack the connections of legitimate network users.

When a legitimate network user turns on his computer, the rogue wireless access point will offer to connect with the network user's NIC. All traffic that the user enters, including usernames and passwords, will go through the rogue access point. This enables a form of wireless packet sniffing.