The activity described is active footprinting because you are not merely listening for wireless broadcasts; you are transmitting crafted 802.11 management frames to elicit responses and gather information. In Wi-Fi reconnaissance, passive methods rely on monitoring beacon frames and other naturally occurring traffic. Active methods, by contrast, deliberately interact with the environment—often by sending probe requests or other management frames—to prompt access points or client devices to respond with details such as SSID, supported data rates, security capabilities, and other parameters.
The scenario explicitly states you “actively send crafted management frames” and then log “immediate responses (including probe responses and capability information).” That is the defining difference between active and passive wireless footprinting. Active footprinting can reveal SSIDs that may not be visible through beacons alone (for example, networks that do not broadcast SSID in beacons may still respond under certain conditions), and it can speed discovery by forcing responses rather than waiting for periodic broadcasts or client activity.
Why the other options are less accurate:
Passive footprinting (B) contradicts the scenario because passive recon involves no transmissions from the auditor’s device.
Wash command (C) refers to a specific tool/command typically associated with WPS enumeration workflows, not the general technique classification being asked here.
Network discovery software (A) is too generic; the question is asking for the technique (active vs passive), and the described behavior is clearly active.
Therefore, the correct answer is D. Active Footprinting.
