Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks against wireless communications
The final attack against wireless networks that we'll evaluate are DoS attacks, where an attacker deprives a legitimate user of access to a wireless network or makes the network unavailable by causing it to crash. Wireless networks are extremely susceptible to DoS attacks, and it is difficult to localize the attacker on a distributed wireless network. Examples of DoS attacks include the following:
- Injecting crafted network commands, such as reconfiguration commands, onto a wireless network can cause a failure of routers, switches, and other network devices.
- Some devices and applications can recognize that an attack is taking place and will automatically respond by disabling the network. A malicious attacker can launch an obvious attack and then let the target create the DoS itself!
- Bombarding the wireless network with a flood of data packets can make it unavailable for use; for example, an HTTP flood attack making thousands of...
