Rogue peers are essentially holes in a network where malicious entities may gain access. Wireless routers or access points are configured with authentication protocols like wired-equivalent privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi protected setup (WPS), and may even have firewalls. Laptops or wireless devices with rogue peers may not be configured as such and can act as an open door to an otherwise secure network. They are not considered part of the network infrastructure, and are therefore considered rogues.

Because a rogue peer is a device not really meant as an access point, the vulnerability that it poses to the network is much more severe than that of a rogue access point because these will at least have built-in security features that may have been enabled by default.