Exception triggered DoS attacks on wireless networks

Yao Zhao*, Sagar Vemuri, Jiazhen Chen, Yan Chen, Hai Zhou, Zhi Fu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Security protocols are not as secure as we assumed. In this paper, we identified a practical way to launch DoS attacks on security protocols by triggering exceptions. Through experiments, we show that even the latest strongly authenticated protocols such as PEAP, EAP-TLS and EAP-TTLS are vulnerable to these attacks. Real attacks have been implemented and tested against TLS-based EAP protocols, the major family of security protocols for Wireless LAN, as well as the Return Routability of Mobile IPv6, an emerging lightweight security protocol in new IPv6 infrastructure. DoS attacks on PEAP, one popular TLS-based EAP protocol were performed and tested on a major university's wireless network, and the attacks were highly successful. We further tested the scalability of our attack through a series of ns-2 simulations. Countermeasures for detection of such attacks and improvements of the protocols to overcome these types of DoS attacks are also proposed and verified experimentally.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2009 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, DSN 2009
Pages13-22
Number of pages10
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Event2009 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, DSN 2009 - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: Jun 29 2009Jul 2 2009

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks

Other

Other2009 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, DSN 2009
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period6/29/097/2/09

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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